The Last Level
by thegraytigress
Summary: There are dark places in the world. A battle with an old enemy lands Tony, Steve, and Clint in a hellish nightmare and only their faith in each other stands between them and death.
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER:** _The Avengers_ is the property of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.

**RATING:** T (for language, violence)

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Hello and welcome to this installment of the Traumatized Trio, otherwise known as Steve, Clint, and Tony getting into some deep, deep trouble in some dark, dark places (literally) :-). This story features a large amount of bromance and some Tony/Pepper. Please read and enjoy!

**THE LAST LEVEL**

**1**

There were dark places in the world. Evil men. Horrors. Hell on earth.

As he drifted in and out of consciousness, Tony was only aware of a few things. Passing thoughts to which he couldn't hold no matter how desperately he tried. Scattered memories and fleeting sensations. Pain and a lot of it. The world tipped and twisted as he blinked teary eyes that stubbornly refused to focus. He saw shadows and dim, yellowish light and metal. He was moving, or being moved. Dragged by his legs, in fact, over something rough and molded into a recurring pattern. Metal grating? His head kept bumping against it, his hair catching in poorly welded joints and chipped, rusted gaps. And the metal lines overhead, draped in shadows, were long snakes that hissed and loomed menacingly over him. Not snakes. Pipes, lining a circular corridor of some sort.

Where the hell was he?

_What happened?_

But he couldn't remember. Everything was jumbled, like his brain had been smashed against his skull so many times that the normal, logical flow of thought and memory had become completely disjointed. Awareness was so teasing, so transient, that he never seemed to stay connected to the world long enough to truly understand it. Something told him that was a good thing. Something told him that the disaster that had landed him in this position – the one he couldn't quite remember – was very bad indeed. And he was in some serious trouble.

Despite that reasoning, he was sadly incapable of making his body _work_. It was like his limbs were completely severed from his brain. Moreover, everything hurt miserably. His chest felt broken; breathing was much more strenuous than it should have been. His head was pounding. The coppery taste of blood kept tainting his tongue, blood that might have been coming from gnashed lips and damaged gums or was seeping upward from the other direction. He felt hot and dizzy and weak. The clank of boots against that damn metal grating was thunderous, nearly as loud as his racing heart straining against his sternum. _They've got you. _It didn't seem to matter that he didn't know who exactly _they_ were. _Taking you somewhere. Fight. Stop them. Fight!_ But he couldn't even make his useless, bloody fingers curl around the holes in the floor, couldn't even lift his weighty head. Couldn't even manage any movement at all. That, at least, slashed through the fog in his mind with a spear of icy desperation.

The corridor went on forever. Tony heard himself groan. The men pulling him finally stopped for a moment, black blobs that loomed over him like monsters. Fear left him shivering. Without the thunderous cacophony of boots marching on the rattling metal floor, he heard something else. Distant, but echoing through these strange, metal hallways. Screaming. Hoarse and deep and ragged. Incessant. Fear washed over him, prickling gooseflesh under grime and blood, and he shuddered. He knew that voice. "Steve…"

"Don't worry, Mr. Stark. Captain Rogers will be joining you and Agent Barton soon enough."

_Clint? _Things flashed through his head. Gunfire. Swords slashing through the air. Clint falling. Steve crying his name. He couldn't move._ "JARVIS, get it off me!"_

The sound of a door being loudly opened, of metal scraping angrily over other metal, interrupted the barrage of memories, and Tony lost track of his thoughts again as he was hauled onward. He couldn't hear Steve anymore. That was both extremely distressing and somewhat relieving. They dragged him farther, and the lights got brighter overhead, and he couldn't stand to keep his eyes open against the pain booming in his skull. When he dared looking again, he was in some sort of small room.

They lifted him onto a cold, rusty table. Instinctively he struggled, but he was too weak and confused to do much more than flail uselessly against strong hands and arms. A frustrated groan left his mouth as he was slammed down into the unforgiving surface, and he lay there, dazed and lost again in the miasma of unsteady consciousness.

The whine of a saw brought him back. "No," he mumbled. He couldn't see as that horrible sound grew louder and louder and _closer,_ and panic surged over him in a painful, electrifying jolt.

"I would hold still."

His arm started vibrating against the table. His arm that was somehow still encased in his suit when the rest of him wasn't. He hadn't noticed that until now and couldn't remember when or why or _how_ that had happened. And he couldn't spend more than a second wondering, because he was pretty goddamn sure that saw was cutting into the armor right below his left shoulder. Tony struggled senselessly, even though he'd been warned not to, even though that whirling blade was cutting into what remained of armor and after that maybe into his body. Hands latched onto his arms and shoulders and head and legs and held him down. He was completely immobilized, helpless. A shower of sparks lit the shadowy room, dancing above him in a glittering show he found oddly peaceful. He calmed despite his horror and panic; his mind was so jumbled and overthrown that the most basic of sensations was outright defeating higher-order needs.

There was talk in a language he didn't know. It sounded like German. Had they been fighting Germans? He couldn't remember. Something out of Steve's era. That couldn't be right. The talking went on for a moment, and he drifted, too exhausted to do much else. His wrist was moved, shifted. His elbow wouldn't bend, and neither would his wrist and fingers, the joints of his suit fused. The vague memory of an explosion and a huge vat tipping in front of him and getting splashed by the spilling liquid rolled through his mind. _"Shit! JARVIS, get it off me! Get it off me!"_

"_The suit is malfunctioning, sir." _

"This needs to come off, Mr. Stark."

And his arm was violently smashed.

A wail escaped Tony's lips as he jerked to awareness. He screamed until there was no breath left in his lungs, until his back was arched and he was quivering and riddled with agony. They banged and bent and mangled his arm and hand over and over again until there was a sequence terrible cracks and his bones broke.

Tony sagged against the table, against the men holding him down, gasping and weeping. The pain shooting up and down his broken arm was excruciating, crushing him in an unending, merciless onslaught. He barely noticed the remains of his armor being extracted from his shattered limb. They pulled the gauntlet away from his bent and broken fingers. "It's better than having it cut off, isn't it?"

He lost consciousness.

But the pleasant comfort of nothingness wasn't long lasting. The pain wouldn't let him escape, reaching down into the sable abyss of sleep and cruelly snatching him back to hell. That steady _clank clank_ of boots on the metal flooring resounded in his ears, as loud and heavy as his heart. Tony moaned and opened his eyes to slits, tears leaking down his face. The world tilted, a shadowy blur of brown and gray that whirled around his head. His good arm was slung over the shoulders of someone else, his other arm dangling uselessly at his side, and he was being carried down something that felt extremely unstable. He blinked and fought to raise his head. They were on some sort of gangway, precariously suspended by cables and supports that moaned with their weight. Moving down the steps was too horrible so he slipped away again. Hitting the bottom jolted him, and the sound of his own yelp echoed around him. The men threw him to the ground, and he fell to his side, gasping and choking and groaning. He was barely capable of rolling over to relieve the pressure on his damaged arm, fighting to for every breath, struggling to survive the debilitating torture.

When the pain had lessened to the point where his senses returned, he noticed there was black next to him. Black clothes covering a prone form. He recognized it. "Clint," he whispered. But the archer didn't answer. He was unmoving, unconscious, barely breathing. Maybe not breathing at all. The entire back of his head of a mess of blood. Tony wrapped the filthy, shaking fingers of his good hand in Barton's pants leg and tried to pull his leaden, throbbing body closer, but he didn't have the strength. "Clint…"

"I don't think he'll survive, Mr. Stark." This was a new voice, and Tony turned his head to find a man standing over him. The sun was blaring above, brighter than he could stand, and it bled around the shadowy form like a halo. The man's face was entirely covered in bandages, the wrappings obscuring his features aside from his dark, maniacal eyes. It was obvious he was smiling, even though his mouth was hidden. A gleam of sadistic satisfaction filled his gaze. "I don't think you will, either. Your arm looks quite painful. Is it? And your hand…" The man gave a sigh of mock sympathy. "Such a devastating injury for an inventor such as yourself. Not that it matters much now." There was an amused, satisfied grunt. "But I do thank you for the piece of your suit. I'll learn so much from it. At least I'll gain something from this… _disaster_."

Tony floundered, struggling to gather his thoughts. This man, this damn monster looming over him… The voice seemed familiar, again heavily accented like he was German (who the hell had brought the Nazis back?), but he couldn't place it. His addled, disjointed thoughts stubbornly refused to produce the facts, even though he _knew_ they were there. What was this bastard's name? Something stupid. Nemo. Zero. Something like that. He choked on a giggle. He hadn't meant to laugh, because there was absolutely nothing at all that was even remotely funny about this, but he always acted inappropriately when things got bad. That annoyed Pepper to no end. And Steve and Rhodey. And Clint and Bruce. And everyone, when he thought about it.

It also annoyed this bastard. "I fail to see what is amusing," he said tensely.

Tony couldn't coordinate his lips and tongue enough to formulate an answer. The bright light blaring around the man from above was damn near blinding. It made him want to sleep, to just give up and try consciousness again when things didn't hurt so much. Thankfully, the man rose from his crouch. "Take a look around, Mr. Stark. I'm sure a man of your expertise in the weapons industry will recognize where you are."

He tried to look around, even though it was damn near impossible to move his head and only slightly less difficult to think over the agony and delirium. They were in some sort of large, circular cavern. Not circular, he realized as he looked lethargically upward. Cylindrical. The cement walls went up and up, higher and higher, to a ragged mouth far above him. The sun was directly overhead, punishing and punishing. Tony _did_ recognize what this was. But he couldn't seem to remember the word, and even if he could, he couldn't produce it. His captor didn't seem to care. "You'd be surprised how many abandoned silos like this are littered around Eastern Europe. Remote holes that run so deep into the earth, bereft of their purpose, ignored by this new civilized world and left to ruin. Relics from wars past, yes? What better tomb for the greatest relic of them all."

There was a clamor over the man's shoulder, and Tony caught flashes of blue as the dark demons that wielded rifles and semi-automatic weapons struggled with something large and weighty. That large form was shoved roughly down the steps and fell in a crumpled heap not far from Tony's feet. It was Steve. He didn't move from where he landed on his stomach. His face was turned away from Tony, but his back was a horrific show of blood and lacerated skin through the shredded remains of his blue undershirt. His right arm was twisted at an odd angle away from his body at the shoulder. Tony didn't remember Steve getting so badly hurt, but he couldn't remember _anything_ clearly. "I fear my men punished him a bit severely."

Panic was starting to overcome any semblance of coherent thought. Tony's eyelids fluttered, his arm and hand throbbing so badly he could hardly bear it. He tried to whisper something. He wasn't sure what. "I pity you," the man said, but the harsh, cruel tone in his voice suggested otherwise. "Iron Man dying in an iron hell. Perishing in the very symbol of your father's lasting legacy." Something was tossed onto his chest. It clattered against the arc reactor and slid to the floor. With great effort, Tony looked to the side. It was a bent and rusted scrap of metal, but he could still make out the black lettering that proudly proclaimed "Stark Industries" in its legacy logo. "Even back then, your family's precious weapons of mass destruction made their way into evil hands."

Tony closed his eyes, too weak to make good on the hatred boiling in his blood. "You think yourself so smart, Mr. Stark. You and the Avengers. And Captain America." He nearly spat Steve's name. "You thought you stopped me, won the day, cut me too deeply for me to triumph." He pulled the bandages around his face away, and Tony nearly gagged at the mangled horror of mutilated skin and destroyed features that was revealed. "These scars will only remind me of your fate, not my own. You and your friends can die slowly and painfully. It might take a few days, and I sincerely pray that it does. There's no way out. No way up. No hope." A hand closed tightly around his throat, squeezing his airway shut, and Tony struggled mindlessly, grabbing with his good hand and pulling. It didn't matter. The grip was impossibly strong, and his battle with the blackness encroaching on his vision was rapidly being lost. All he could see were those bloodthirsty eyes and that hideous visage. The man shoved him down into the cold, unforgiving cement. "The price for what you did to my face. You stay down here and _suffer_."

The command was a vicious hiss, and then the hand released his neck and he could breathe again. Tony sucked in a desperate breath, choking and coughing and rolling to his side in a meager effort to protect himself. For a long moment, he simply concentrated on inhaling and exhaling, his heart roaring in fright and panic. Then that voice came again, further away, and he opened his eyes. "Do me a favor and tell Captain America when he wakes that I won. At last I got my revenge." The man gave a twisted imitation of a laugh. "The super soldier serum should keep him alive a bit longer than you and Agent Barton, so he'll have the added pleasure of watching the two of you wither away and despairing his own helplessness before he dies himself. My father would be so pleased."

The sound of boots thudding across the floor resounded in the hole, bouncing off the walls that went so high toward the sky. Tony watched, trying to blink the tears from his eyes, trying to will himself to move, for Clint or Steve to do _something_, as the man and his soldiers went back up the steps that led up to the gangway. But he couldn't move, and the other Avengers were motionless beside him. "And I wouldn't count on your friends or your pathetic SHIELD finding you. They won't know you're down here. They won't even think to look. I guarantee it." Tony coughed on another sob, blood filling his mouth anew. He was so goddamn useless. "_Auf Wiedersehen_, Mr. Stark."

There was the sound of cables snapping, of metal whining and screaming as it was bent, as it collapsed. Tony watched wearily as the men destroyed the supports for the gangway, and the catwalk and the attached stairs crashed down from the level above to the bottom of the silo. The racket was deafening, a horrific shriek that reverberated long after the wreckage had settled.

Then it was silent. Completely, horrifically _silent_.

Tony laid flat on the unforgiving cement, struggling to do something – _anything _– to stop this. They were being left behind. Left to die with no way to escape. He tried to reach Clint, to speak, but he couldn't. And Steve was unmoving on his other side. Blood was pooling beneath him, spreading on the filthy floor to soak into Tony's ripped shirt. He listened to the distant sound of machinery moving, rattling and rumbling. That quieted, and a moment of utter silence passed before a vicious explosion shook the entire silo. Panic seized him as the blast violently vibrated the cavern. Above the remains of catwalks and gangways and platforms clinging to the dirty walls rattled precariously as the entirety of the silo trembled as though wracked by an earthquake. The hulking, dark masses of the levels above them shuddered. Tony pushed himself as close to Clint as he could, his sneakers feebly sliding across the cement. He heard cables snap. He saw things dangling above, swaying madly. What was happening? They needed to get out of here! They were going to be crushed!

But they weren't.

Everything quieted again.

Tony dared to breathe, peeking from above the good arm that he'd used to protect his face. The shadowy levels above, rusted and battered, seemed to have settled. He nearly relaxed, gazing up through the silo. Then his terror returned.

Tony watched, horrified, when the sky and sun, so bright and beautiful, began to disappear. Two black rectangles were slowly, _painfully_ descending, closing over the opening so far above them. He could only stare, awestruck, not quite comprehending what was happening, as the light was swallowed by darkness, as the gaping mouth shut. The doors to the silo met in the middle with a heavy, ominous clank that shook the walls. Dirt and dust fell from above, coating him. And it was still.

The internal lights in the silo flickered, threatening utter blackness.

Tony couldn't calm his racing heart. He gasped violently, struggling to keep his composure, but it was hopeless. Useless. They were trapped. Trapped in an iron hell buried so deep in the earth that no one would ever find them.

He thought he heard himself scream before the lights went out.

* * *

_Auf Wiedersehen – _goodbye


	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER:** _The Avengers_ is the property of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.

**RATING:** T (for language, violence)

**THE LAST LEVEL**

**2**

_Leipzig, Germany_

_12 hours prior_

"So who is this Finding Nemo guy again?"

Steve's exasperated voice came over the communications link. "Baron Zemo. And why didn't you pay attention during the mission briefing?"

Tony smirked behind Iron Man's face plate, even though Rogers couldn't see it. He was flying alongside the SHIELD quinjet as they rocketed toward some place in Germany where a lunatic was planning on destroying the world or some stupid nonsense. "Standard stuff. Stop the bad guy. Save the world. Be a hero."

He could imagine Steve rolling his eyes as he glanced at the quinjet streaking through the clouds beside him. Truth be told, there hadn't been much of a mission briefing. They'd received the frantic call from Fury at Stark Tower only forty minutes ago, and they had rushed to the SHIELD helicarrier only to be met by Fury on the flight deck. Fury had been visibly worried, quickly leading the assembled Avengers to the bridge where a video was being played, analyzed, and dissected on nearly every monitor available. It was some message from an older guy named Helmut Zemo, son of some madman named Heinrich Zemo, who'd apparently been a member of Hitler's Inner Circle during World War II. Like Johann Schmidt, he'd been an inventor, hell-bent on creating weapons and other evil tools for the Nazis to win the war and exterminate the undesirables of the world. This Heinrich Zemo had been an old enemy of Captain America and the Howling Commandos, though the way the current Baron Zemo went on in the video about his father's legendary "battles" with his arch nemesis seemed rather contradictory to what that arch nemesis remembered. Steve had seemed fairly mystified by the whole thing, explaining that he and the Howling Commandos had had only one run-in with Heinrich Zemo, the one where they'd put him down. Zemo had had a nasty habit of testing his inventions on innocents (or anyone he deemed convenient), and when his sadistic interests had turned to his own people, he became an enemy of the Third Reich as much as the Allies. After some sort of massive "death ray" had disintegrated a German town, killing more than a hundred civilians, SSR had pulled the Commandos from chasing HYDRA across Europe to stop Zemo. And they had. Zemo hadn't been terribly well-protected by the Nazis, so Steve and his men had gone in and destroyed his base. Zemo had fallen into a tub of some sort of liquid that he had been in the process of developing, and everyone had thought he'd perished.

Apparently not. Somewhere along the line he'd procreated.

And this new Baron Zemo seemed pissed as all hell at Captain America. Apparently daddy had inflated his wartime achievements a bit, told some pretty grand tales of the awesome battles between himself and America's golden boy.

Of course, there were the logical inconsistencies that Bruce had immediately pointed out. Like how Helmut Zemo could seem middle-aged despite having been born before or during World War II. And where the hell he'd been all this time (and what he'd been doing) considering that SHIELD seemed to know very little about him and not much escaped SHIELD's attention. But the answers to these important questions would have to wait, because Zemo had chosen this day to be his day of reckoning, and he wanted vengeance on Captain America. Thus he had made his video and broadcasted it and SHIELD, with eyes and ears around the world, had immediately picked it up. Zemo's message was fairly simple. Captain America would come to Germany and fight him (which Tony found, frankly, pretty goddamn laughable. Steve was the best fighter he'd ever seen and stronger than pretty much anyone else on earth. Well, except for him in his suit. And maybe Thor, but Thor was from Asgard, so that didn't count. And the Hulk. But the point was that anyone who could be stronger and better than Steve was on Steve's side, so this plan was plain stupid). And if Captain America was not there at Zemo's doorstep in an hour, the mad scientist would apparently _flood _London with Adhesive X.

Nobody had ever heard of Adhesive X. But the demonstration on the video was pretty astounding. Apparently this viscous compound was the most amazing, the most potent glue ever. It could cause anything to stick to anything else, and it was impossible to dissolve. It lent a whole new meaning to the concept of permanence. The thought of dousing any major civilian population with large quantities of the substance were downright terrifying. Fury had watched Zemo's threat only once before summoning the Avengers.

And now they were speeding to Zemo's base in Leipzig in eastern Germany. Zemo had made some grand talk in the video of his remote detonation system, warning that he could immediately destroy London if Captain America was a moment late, but they had no idea _what _he intended to detonate. So they had split up. Zemo hadn't said anything about Steve coming alone, so Tony and Clint would provide support and hopefully, if Tony could get his hands on it, disable Zemo's system. Thor, Natasha, and Bruce would head with a team of SHIELD agents to London to attempt to prevent the disaster or otherwise contain it. There was some concern about sending the Hulk into so heavily populated an area (and into such a dangerous and tense situation), but if large objects (such as containers loaded with Adhesive X) needed to be moved, there was nobody more capable. The hope was that if the fight between Zemo and Rogers went south, the two fastest and strongest Avengers, guided by Black Widow's quick thinking, would be able to diffuse the danger before Zemo had a chance to unleash his weapon. Assuming, of course, that Tony wouldn't be able to disable the remote detonators himself.

Which he would, of course. He was Tony Stark.

"ETA: two minutes," Barton announced from the pilot's chair. Steve sat beside him. Tony saw him pull his cowl over his head. "SHIELD is assisting in the evacuation, but they don't think they will get the city clear in time." The others had arrived in London a few minutes ago, and from the first reports, the search for however Zemo planned to flood the city with Adhesive X wasn't terribly fruitful.

"Then we need to make sure Zemo keeps his finger off the trigger," Steve said. There was a touch of nervousness in his voice, underneath all the bravado and confidence of Captain America and the leader of the Avengers. They had four minutes left before the deadline to land and get to the coordinates Zemo had supplied. They had moved as fast as they could, but they were cutting it close. Hopefully Zemo had patience. _Not likely,_ Tony thought grimly as he poured more energy into the suit's boosters. _These assholes never do._

"I know that tone of voice," Clint said. "That's the 'take a hit for the team' tone. No heroics, Cap."

"Who said I need heroics?" Steve quipped, but the joke fell flat. Unfortunately, they had so little information on this Zemo guy that they had no idea what he really wanted and what he was capable of doing. This whole situation stank of a trap. And they both knew beyond any doubt that Steve would gladly sacrifice anything, including his life, to save innocents. He had before. However, before either Tony or Clint could say anything further, Steve's commanding tone cut over the communications link again. "Let's just get in there and get this done."

"Got a visual on the coordinates. You see it, Stark?"

Tony did. It was some sort of chemical plant by the look of it, fairly sizeable and located a few miles outside the city. The installation boasted quite a few huge vessels, presumably loaded with materials, and a complex maze of interconnected pipes ran among these vessels and main building. A spider web of electrical lines ran to the plant. Shafts of smoke crept into the sky from a few stacks littered about the complex. It was dusk, and a slew of lights dotted the area. It looked plain and unassuming, simply the normal, mundane sort of industrial business that provided the world with chemicals involved in almost everything nowadays. But it was apparently the secret lair of an evil megalomaniac. "Follow me."

Iron Man landed with a heavy thud on the ground, and he turned to watch as Clint set the quinjet down behind him. The engines of the aircraft whined as they slowed and eventually stopped, and the rear door opened. Captain America was the first to exit, his shield held on his right arm, and Hawkeye followed, grasping his bow and making a few final adjustments to the fully loaded quiver on his back. "Shall we?" Tony said. "Clock's ticking."

The two Avengers sprinted across the grounds, Iron Man flying overhead. Tony had JARVIS scan the perimeter of the plant and found it eerily devoid of any sign of activity, human or otherwise. "It's quiet," Tony remarked. And then he couldn't help himself. "A little too quiet."

"Don't start, Stark," came Hawkeye's irate grumble.

"What?" Tony demanded, mock hurt lacing his tone. "Just saying. Keeping us on our toes. You know. Wouldn't want us to get into a sticky situation."

"Damn it, Tony," Steve snapped. "Enough messing around. Let's stay on target."

"What fun is that?" Tony whined as they approached the front of the plant's main building. "You guys are awfully stuck on protocol. Glued to the mission objectives. That was kind of a stretch, wasn't it? Usually I'm so much better, but this is too lame for good puns."

"Stark! Shut it, or I swear to God I'll put an arrow in your ass!" Clint yelled, and Tony had no doubt the archer would make good on his threat as he landed beside the other two men. Clint was generally a pretty cool customer, not easily riled, which made ruffling his feathers, so to speak, all that much more enjoyable an accomplishment. Barton's keen eyes darted around the shadowy entrance. Every line of his body was taut, and his stoic expression betrayed his wariness. "I don't like this. Something seems screwy."

"We don't have time to worry about it now," Steve said as they reached the large doors of the plant. The heavy, dark slabs were tightly sealed. Tony couldn't deny his own sense of foreboding as the three of them appraised what loomed ominously before them.

A silent, hesitant moment crawled by. Clint released a long breath and glanced at Steve. "Cap?"

Tony lost his patience when Rogers didn't move fast enough and stomped the few short steps to the control panel beside the door. "He invited you, didn't he?" He slapped his palm to open the doors, and with a rumble, the metal portal slid open to reveal (_shockingly_) more darkness. "After you."

Steve shot him a withering look before tentatively stepping inside. Clint walked beside him, an arrow already nocked to his bowstring, quick eyes looking around the area. There wasn't much to be seen. Everything was covered in blackness. Tony was about to tell JARVIS to switch the scanners to infrared when bright light abruptly rushed over them. Steve winced, stopping and holding his arm out across Tony to block him from going any further. An echoing clang made Clint whirl, but there was nothing he could do to stop the doors from closing behind them. Like some scene out of a bad adventure movie, the bad guy and his henchmen had just trapped the heroes.

Said bad guy stood atop the second of two sets of catwalks that lined the entirety of the massive rectangular, room. He was flanked by dozens of armed soldiers, each pointing a rifle at the Avengers. They were spread along the top gangway and also below on the secondary platform. In the middle of the room the floor dipped into a concrete well that encompassed most of the building's considerable width, and there were a few tall vats in its center that contained some sort of boiling liquid. Noxious fumes rose into the series of interconnected pipes that ran from the floor to the ceiling far above. The lower catwalk wove around these vats, and the higher was just above them. The vats were feeding into two channels embedded into the floor of the well that disappeared into rear of the facility. Surely it was the Adhesive X. And there was a ton of it.

"Welcome, Captain," the man on the top gangway in the center of the room proclaimed. He was tall and wore a dark cloak. He was also surprisingly youthful for a man who surely had to be in his eighties or nineties, with pale blond hair, a pointed jaw, and icy blue eyes. His skin was very taut over his severe features and unnaturally smooth and flawless but very fake. Maybe it wasn't relevant, but Tony thought he looked the picture of Aryan perfection. The thought turned his stomach. "I applaud your punctuality. I had wondered if you would prove too much of a coward to come."

"Save it, Zemo," Steve said, glaring up at him. "You want to fight me? Well, here I am. Disable whatever bombs you have in London and you'll get your shot at me."

There was the low murmur of a chuckle throughout the crowd of black-clad soldiers, and Zemo outright laughed. "London? Did I say London?" _Oh, shit._ Tony hated being right all the time. From the dismayed expression claiming Clint's face, he was feeling a similar sentiment. "You didn't send the rest of your team there, did you?"

Steve clenched a fist at his side. "Where is it?" he asked lowly, his eyes flashing with an unspoken threat should Zemo lie. It was pretty laughable. They were surrounded, outnumbered, and clearly at every disadvantage in the situation. But that was what Steve did best. Play it straight and follow through.

Zemo smiled, amused. He certainly seemed to be a vindictive bastard. _Clever, smart, and evil. Great combination._ He started walking the length of the gangway, his boots making the metal grating clank and rattle with each step. His hands were clasped behind his back like a goddamn professor giving a great lecture, and Tony gritted his teeth in irritation. "My father was responsible for some of the greatest inventions and discoveries of the prior century. Lasers capable of disintegrating entire towns. Compounds that could slow the effects of aging while heightening physical characteristics." At that he smiled slightly, and Tony wanted to wipe that damn grin off his perfect face. This guy was really and truly pissing him off. "And Adhesive X, a molecule so strong in its connection to _any_ other type of molecule that it is the ultimate bonding agent. Chemical perfection."

Tony couldn't keep himself in check anymore. "It's just glue. Most kids have mastered the art of gluing by the age of ten. What, did you have trouble? Did you need daddy to make you your own glue stick because the other kids wouldn't share? Oh, no, I get it. You like sniffing as you're sticking. That explains your freaky face."

"Mr. Stark," Zemo said in greeting. "Your father and mine were quite the counterparts. I suppose that makes you and me something of equal opposites. Your ying to my yang."

This nut was certifiable. "Uh, no. Last I checked I'm a world-renowned super hero and the head of the most profitable technology company in the history of mankind. Not to mention a damn fine male specimen, bordering on total and unabashed perfection, if I do humbly say so myself. You're a crazy bastard who apparently thinks he can stick it to the world with some evil plot that we're about to very handily and sexily thwart." Tony nudged Steve in the ribs a little with his elbow. "Stick it. Get it? I'm on a roll today."

Steve ignored him. In the months since the Chitauri incident, Tony had gotten fairly friendly with Steve (at least to the point where they didn't antagonize each other _all _the time), but, man, Rogers could be a humorless stick in the mud when it suited him. "What's your target, Zemo?" he demanded, pulling the conversation back to the matter at hand. "If not London, then where?"

Zemo went on in his pontification as though Steve hadn't spoken at all. "Adhesive X has other interesting, and perhaps mundane, properties. Most pertinent, it exists as a liquid at room temperature, but apply heat, as we see here, and it begins to boil. As it boils, the individual molecules begin to gain kinetic energy, and at a certain point, its state changes from a liquid – "

"To a gas," Clint angrily said. "Get to the point."

Zemo seemed mildly surprised and amused. He smiled slightly at Clint. "The point, Agent Barton, is that the Adhesive X is now dispersing through the air, invisible. Seemingly innocuous. At these low concentrations, not terribly harmful. But in large quantities…" He flashed a dazzling smile. "You noticed those ten large tanks outside. Each is filled with ten thousand liters of Adhesive X. That's one hundred thousand liters, already aerosolized, and rigged to explode. By my calculations, that should create a fairly sizeable and concentrated plume of poison over much of Germany, a plume that could potentially move and wreak havoc all over Europe. And that cloud will condense and create quite the toxic rain. Imagine the damage. I cannot be certain, but I don't think that Adhesive X will react well with the sensitive tissues of the human body." There was that toothy, self-satisfied smirk again. "So, in answer to your question, Captain, I have no single target. I have created a bomb beyond even your capability to stop."

Tony's anger surged. "You're a presumptuous little bugger, aren't you?"

"I'm merely fulfilling my father's legacy by wiping Europe clean of anyone and everyone less than worthy. He was a genius," Zemo responded.

"He was insane," Steve corrected, "and so are you. You wanted to fight me. So get your revenge that way."

Zemo laughed arrogantly. "Did you think it would be so easy, Captain? Just offer yourself up as a martyr? While killing you, my father's long-fought nemesis, is certainly part of my plans, I have grander aspirations. I want vengeance on the _world_. And I want you to die knowing you failed to stop it. Once I bring you to your knees, I will make you watch while I ignite the tanks and spread my poison. And then I will drive my blade into your heart." Steve's jaw set in worry and anger. Zemo's eyes flashed hungrily. "So let's start, yes? Fight your way up to me and we'll see if I can finish my father's work. I've waited quite a while for this."

And with that, all hell broke loose.

The soldiers opened fire, and the Avengers scattered. Steve rolled to the side, blocking a slew of bullets with his shield before mightily throwing it to the group of men closest to them on the lower catwalk. Two were struck and fell, and the remainder was blasted by darts from the arrow that had sunk deep in the neck of Clint's mark. Tony launched a salvo of repulsor blasts at the men attempting to flank them, but most took cover behind the numerous vats and pipes in the massive room. "Sir, I would suggest you try not to hit the containers," JARVIS warned. His voice was mild and calm despite the situation. "If this chemical is as potent as the Baron says, I daresay contact with it might be fatal."

"No, really," Tony snidely responded. "Were you taking a siesta the last few minutes? Analyze what you can!"

"Tony!" Steve shouted over the communications link. Tony caught a glimpse of Rogers and Barton fighting to his left, Steve protecting Clint with his shield while the archer unloaded shot after shot on their seemingly innumerable assailants. "Can you get word through to the others?"

Tony whirled, landing a roundhouse kick at a man stupid enough to approach him. The idiot fell back, his chest crushed, gurgling. Bullets dinged and dented his armor, ricocheting off to clang among the many metal surfaces within the plant. "JARVIS?"

"I am trying to reach Agent Romanoff," the AI said, "but there is considerable interference. They appear to be blocking our communications signals." _Perfect._ "I also cannot get through to SHIELD."

_ Wonderful._ "If I go higher?"

"I cannot say for certain."

"We're on our own for now, Cap," Tony said tightly. He activated the thrusters in his boots and launched from the well onto the lower catwalk, where he landed with a heavy thud. He raised his palm and fired his repulsor beam at the enemies shooting at his teammates.

There was a flash of red, blue, and silver, and Steve's shield rushed past him to smash into a man trying to ambush him from behind. The shield flew back to Steve, and then with one powerful leap, Captain America was standing beside him. "Then you need to figure out how he's going to detonate those tanks and stop it. Hawkeye, keep them off him."

"Right. Can you get me higher, Stark?"

Tony fired a series of quick pulses to push the men around them back and then jumped down. He shot across the room, dodging a spray of gunfire, before reaching Clint. The archer was heavily engaged, sweeping the legs out from one man before stabbing another with an arrow which he then yanked free, nocked, and shot. Tony grabbed him by the arms and in one swift, easy motion, lifted him up the forty feet to the higher catwalk. "Happy sniping," Tony said, leaving Clint as the master assassin smoothly fired at another soldier shooting at Rogers.

"Hurry, Tony," Steve said, catching Tony's eyes. He crushed the barrel of one man's gun in his hand before tossing the mutilated weapon and then its bearer over the edge of the lower catwalk to the well below. Steve was making his way to the steps located to his right. "I'll keep him busy."

_This sounds like a great plan,_ Tony thought as he flew upward. He raised both his hands and blasted a hole through the ceiling of the main building and rocketed out into the night air. He was immediately hit by something that knocked him off course, something that exploded against his chest. He spun chaotically before violently striking the ground. He tore into the earth, leaving a sizeable rut in the soil as he slid a few feet. There he lay still for a moment, trying to breathe through the pain and vertigo. "I believe you were struck by an RPG," JARVIS announced.

"Yeah," Tony groaned, struggling upward, glancing at the quick diagnostic of the suit's systems that JARVIS was presenting on his display. The damage had been moderate; structural integrity was slightly compromised in his chest plate, but JARVIS was already rerouting power to account for the battered relays. And he thought he had a few bruised ribs, if the pain in his chest and his shortness of breath was any indication. That only further fueled his frustration. He was up and in the air again before JARVIS had completed Iron Man's recovery. "Show me where to shoot."

"Sir, the detonators?"

He cursed in irritation, firing a few missiles from his shoulder launcher before the targeting lock completed. The black blocks on the ground below him scattered when his shots struck, the explosions small and brief blasts of light. "What are we dealing with?" he asked as he executed a wide arc around the plant.

JARVIS took a moment to finish the scans. "The detonators are located inside each vessel," the AI declared remorsefully. A three-dimensional wire-frame representation of the vessel appeared on his screen with a flashing light to indicate the placement of the detonator at the bottom of the tank. "They are inaccessible."

"Freaking marvelous," Tony muttered.

"Even if you could reach them, it is unlikely you will have enough time to individually dismantle each one. I am currently scanning for a central control unit."

Tony rolled to avoid another RPG and went higher to further limit the ability of the soldiers on the ground to properly aim. "It could be remote. Maybe on Zemo himself." Once he was a few hundred feet in the air, he said, "Try SHIELD from up here."

JARVIS worked briefly. "I have established a connection to the helicarrier, but it is weak."

Nick Fury's face immediately appeared in a small rectangle in the lower left of his visual field. It was choppy and filled with distortion as the digital signal flickered. "Fury, the bombs are _not_ in London! They're in Germany, and we need backup here! Do you copy?" Over the static filling his ears, he could barely hear the ghosts of some words. Whatever Fury (or whoever had answered) was saying was absolutely and hopelessly inaudible. "Do you copy?"

"That is the best I can manage," JARVIS explained as the signal was lost.

"Then we have to hope it was good enough," Tony said in frustration, diving lower. "Come on, we have to do something!"

"I am continuing to scan. Sir, if I might suggest, I believe these external generators are powering the boilers inside each vessel that are maintaining the necessary temperature to keep the Adhesive X in a gaseous state." Small buildings alongside each tank flashed on his graphical display. "They seem to be independently powered from the detonators. Destroying them should cause the Adhesive X to cool rather rapidly, given its strong tendency to bond with itself. In the event that Baron Zemo activates the detonators, the mess will be significantly more contained. It is better than nothing."

"Sounds like a plan," Tony answered, banking to the left as Iron Man's targeting systems locked on the to the first vessel's generator. He launched a missile from his shoulder compartment, and his shot flew straight and true. The small building outside the tank exploded, and his suit's sensors immediately recorded dropping temperatures within the sealed vessel. He turned sharply to avoid another missile and made quick work of the second generator. And the third. He flew rapidly around the complex, destroying each as quickly as he could, dodging enemy fire. By the time he was finished, he was nearly out of missiles, but at least Zemo's dreams of his massive poison cloud were dashed.

"How's it going, Stark?" Hawkeye asked over the communications line. His voice was tense. There were winks from guns firing inside the main building.

"I can't disable the bombs, but I've limited their range at least." Another RPG caught onto his tail the second he came closer to the main building, and Tony took to the sky again, zooming higher and releasing chaff to hopefully disrupt the hostile's targeting. He angled around and tried the more direct approach, letting loose a repulsor shot that hit the RPG straight on. It exploded, but another was quick to take its place. He was already on his way down and it was too late to alter his course. "Coming back to you!"

He tricked the missile into flying into the ground, and the resulting strike shook the main building. "Easy! You wanna set that stuff off?" Clint reprimanded sharply.

Iron Man thundered through the hole in the ceiling and landed powerfully on the cement ground, bracing himself with his right arm before rising to his full height. "We gotta find that remote detonator. Talk to me, J," Tony ordered, glancing around frantically. Clint had successfully gathered the attention of most of the soldiers, and a great deal of them was strewn about, dead or otherwise out of commission. But Barton had obviously depleted his quiver, as he'd drawn his handgun and had taken cover behind some sort of metal container on the higher level of the catwalk. Tony sincerely hoped it was empty as bullets peppered it.

"I have detected a radio signal that could link the detonators with the controller," JARVIS announced. Tony caught a glimpse of a pretty frantic fight going on above him, precariously close to the steaming vats of Adhesive X. Steve landed a hell of a hard punch in Zemo's side, trapping him against the metal railing, but it hardly slowed the bastard down. _What the hell is with this guy?_ "The same interference that is limiting our communications with SHIELD is inhibiting my ability to accurately locate its source."

Tony barreled into a few soldiers shooting at Clint. "Guess!"

"It is within this building, plus or minus 10.7 meters."

_No shit that's not accurate_, Tony thought frantically as he knocked away the last of the soldiers with which he was fighting. Iron Man looked around the massive building, quickly analyzing his surroundings for something – anything – that looked like a potential place for the detonation controller. He prayed it wasn't on Zemo. Just as he was about to give up his cursory search and help Steve, he caught sight of a panel below the catwalks just above the edge of the well to the left. He fired the rockets in his boots and shot over to it. Ten lights were flashing. Ten lights for ten tanks outside. Could it be so simple?

He activated the laser in his gauntlet and cut through the locking mechanism securing the door to the panel. Then he ripped it open. His lips turned upward into a satisfied smirk. "Bingo."

"Shit. Steve!" Clint's cry drew his attention and he pivoted quickly and ran from beneath the catwalk to get a better view of what was going on above. Steve was lying on the higher catwalk, bleeding from his shoulder, and Zemo swung a goddamn _sword_ down on him with all the strength of a maniac. He got his shield up just in time to deflect the blow, and the impact of the blade on the vibranium was reflected back up Zemo's arms, forcing him to drop his weapon. Enraged and ranting like a madman, Zemo kicked Steve over as he tried to stand and Captain America fell from the catwalk into the shadows below.

Zemo looked at Tony and shook his head slowly, knowingly, with a smug smile all over his sweaty face. He reached into his pocket.

Then Clint thudded to the top of the catwalk, having jumped from _somewhere_. He picked up the sword that Zemo had dropped and approached the other man. "Uh, Barton? What the hell are you doing?" Tony asked.

"Distracting him," Clint responded like him going against a furious mad scientist with a sword was the most normal thing in the world. "Hurry and do what you need to."

Tony could only watch, dumbstruck, as Zemo pulled _another_ sword from beneath his cloak and licked his lips hungrily. "What the hell is with this guy?" He charged at Clint, the wicked, gleaming, razor-sharp edge of his sword flashing toward the archer. Tony expected him to fumble with a block, but Clint parried like a professional, bringing his blade to bear expertly. He sidestepped the next slash, gripping the sword with two hands and thrusting back. "And what the hell is with you? When did you go all ninja?"

Clint grunted but couldn't answer, moving like lightning to keep up with Zemo. The wide arc of Zemo's sword slashed at him, and Clint hastily blocked but not before the sharp edge bit into his forearm. The two were then locked in a contest of strengths. "Damn it, Stark! Concentrate!" Clint shouted.

"Right, right." Tony turned back to the panel, quickly scanning what he saw. It was a series of circuits, one for each of the detonators. He quickly traced the wires and saw a fairly intricate series of connections. "I suppose blasting the crap out of this isn't an option."

"I would not risk it," JARVIS answered. The AI brought a map of the wires up on his display, and Tony glanced over it, his agile mind quickly deducing the best method of disconnecting the detonators from the controllers. Then he went to work, his fingers flying as fast as he could manage as he pulled the wires loose and reconnected them to trick the system into believing it was still active. JARVIS had detected a few fail safes, and he was working frantically to avoid triggering them. One by one the circuits went dead. "Sir, behind you."

Tony stood and whirled around, flinging a repulsor blast at the men climbing up the ladders of the well and coming at him. Gunfire slammed into the floor behind him. There were too many for him to contend with, especially if he needed to concentrate on stopping the detonators. "I need these bastards off of me!"

A blue blur launched into the throng of soldiers shooting at him. Steve pummeled the first man, and then grabbed another by the vest and threw him into his buddies, sending the lot tumbling back down into the well. He quickly made short work of them, his shield catching the light as he rammed it into the chest of another assailant. The melee was furious and over very quickly.

The sound of swords smashing together reverberated through the room, and they looked to the catwalk, to the flash of steel and Zemo's long swirling cape and Clint's pain-filled face as he limped away. It was difficult to see them clearly through the steam from the boiling vats of Adhesive X below them. Clint danced, parrying a blow and returning a rapid strike of his own. The sword hit home and Zemo roared in fury. The catwalk shuddered as they fought. Zemo shoved Clint away and then screamed to his men, "Kill them now!"

Steve looked to Tony. "Hurry." Then he was bounding up the steps to get to Clint.

Tony turned back to the panel, his capable fingers moving of their own accord. There was a whine, something powering up, and the sound caused him to look over his shoulder. He watched in horror as a few of Zemo's men pointed some sort of gun in his general direction. "Oh, shit." He fired the thrusters in his suit as he leapt away, and not a moment too soon. A red bolt of energy struck the cement where he had been standing, and the floor just disappeared. Disintegrated. Tony gazed at the smoking hole where solid matter had once been. "Death ray. Right." The next shot utterly obliterated a significant portion of the lower catwalk above him. It was just gone like it had never existed, and the section that remain creaked and moaned under the stress as its supports buckled. "Cap! Take that thing out!"

Tony raced back to the panel and quickly tried to finish his work. He flinched as he heard that damn gun go off again, the red beam arcing wildly as Steve assaulted the men controlling it. He forced himself to move faster. But the beam cut just above his head, and Tony ducked. The next shot flew off its mark because Steve had jumped the gun's operator. The red column of light cut into the well, removing a significant chunk of the floor near the farther channel of Adhesive X. The dangerous liquid began to seep into the well, and men started screaming. Gunfire rained down on Tony, clanking all over his suit, as the luckier soldiers climbed from the well and opened fire. Iron Man was built to take more than a few bullet hits, but an entire salvo? And something told him "death ray" was not just a clever name. He couldn't work like this! "Damn it!"

He abandoned his job and jumped upward and launched through the room toward the cannon to help Steve. A few well-aimed repulsor shots killed two of the soldiers while Steve grappled with a third. The man was slammed into the railing of the catwalk, and he slumped to the ground. Then Steve rammed the edge of his shield into the control panel of the cannon, and it moaned and sprayed him with sparks before losing power.

A cry of pain drew their attention, and they watched in fear as Zemo kicked Clint's sword away and then knocked the archer over the railing. "Clint!" Steve screamed, and then he was thundering across the catwalk. Tony followed, rocketing through the air. He gritted his teeth and streaked toward Zemo who was again reaching into his cloak. He tackled the son of a bitch hard, sending them both down into the metal grating with a loud _clank_. Tony fumbled for the smooth, cell phone sized remote detonator, but Zemo won the battle and pressed the button.

Thank God, nothing happened.

Tony smiled behind his face plate. "Whoops," he said.

Zemo's face twisted in frustration and anger. He grabbed Tony's chest plate and bodily _flung_ him from the top catwalk. Before Tony had a chance to react, he hit the hard slab of concrete in the bottom of the well some forty or fifty feet below on his back. The breath rushed from his lungs, and for a seeming infinity, he was dazed.

At least he hadn't landed in one of the many puddles of Adhesive X.

"Tony!" Steve's voice sounded so distant, like he was shouting through a long, vacuous tunnel. Some sort of garbled reply fled his numb lips before he thought to speak. At least the captain would know he was alive. He heard Steve shouting more. "Clint! Hang on!" Iron Man's systems were floundering as badly as he was, but Tony managed to focus. Steve was lying on his stomach on the catwalk, reaching down with his right hand and holding Clint up by his wrist. The archer was dangling over a vat of Adhesive X, the steaming tendrils from the boiling poison reaching upward with ghostly fingers to caress his legs. "I got you!"

Zemo appeared over Steve and drove the sword down through his left shoulder and down into the catwalk. The bloody blade stabbed through the metal grating by a good three or four inches as Zemo pushed the sword into Steve up to the goddamn hilt. Steve howled and his grip slackened and Clint shouted something that Tony couldn't hear over the roar of his heart in his ears. _Oh, God. Get up there!_ He struggled to do that, fought with all of his might to get to his feet, but the rest of the soldiers were attacking like wolves that caught the scent of blood. Bullets slammed into his back, and he was sent reeling. Forced to turn and shoot at his attackers, he could only watch the horrific scene play out through frantic, terrified glances.

Pinned as he was, Steve couldn't do a damn thing as Zemo left the sword embedded in his shoulder and stepped over his shaking body. The bastard stalked slowly down to the lower catwalk and then made his way over to the steps to reach the floor. His destination was absolutely clear. The control panel for the detonators.

"Steve!" Clint shouted. He was flailing, trying to reinforce his grip on Steve's arm.

Steve's face was a twisted grimace of agony and effort as he tried to lift Clint. He couldn't. He couldn't and Clint kicked wildly as the Adhesive X bubbled only a few feet beneath him. Tony shot a long beam from his palm repulsor, moving his hand to take down the soldiers approaching his stricken teammates as quickly as he could. He was about to fire the thrusters in his boots to get Clint, but Zemo reached the floor and moved toward the panel, the remote detonator clenched tightly in his hand. "Stop him!" Steve's blue eyes, mired in panic and pain and desperation, were direct and serious and denied any sort of disobedience. This wasn't a request. It was an order. "Stark, _stop him!_"

Tony ground his teeth together and fired his thrusters upward to race toward Zemo. He slammed into his enemy and they went down again, tangled together as they rolled and struggled and then fell down the five feet into the well. The remote detonator clattered away and into the channel of Adhesive X running from the vat behind them. _That solves that, at least!_ Zemo grabbed his neck and lifted Tony off of him and dropped him to the ground roughly. _How the hell is he so strong?_ The world spun again – he was getting real _goddamn_ sick of that – and he barely caught a glimpse of Steve and Clint. Clint slipping. Steve trying harder and harder to hang on, but he couldn't move closer, couldn't use his other arm with that sword stuck in him. _Damn it, I should have never listened and never left them and –_

Steve swung Clint once, twice, like a pendulum, gaining momentum. Then he threw him to the left with a cry of pain.

Clint soared through the air, safely away from the vat, and grabbed onto the railing of the catwalk. But this was the catwalk that had been partially vaporized by the death ray, and his weight was enough to snap the remainder of the suffering supports. The whole thing went down to the floor with a shriek of twisting metal and snapping chain, and Clint went down under it. Tony saw the back of his head strike the ground, and then he stopped moving, pinned under the wreckage.

Steve sagged against the catwalk with a weak cry of anguish. Then he stopped moving, too.

Rage blossomed through Tony, hot and demanding, and he growled, rolling to his feet and punching Zemo. The baron stumbled back, but quickly returned a blow of his own. Tony leaned away, just barely avoiding the strike. They fought wildly for a moment, unhinged and violent. Tony was rapidly tiring, but there was no way in hell Zemo was getting to that control panel. Not now. He was the only one left standing, and he threw caution to the wind. Maybe blowing the panel would prove to be a bad idea, but at least there was a chance it would stop Zemo. "Oh, no, you don't!" Tony freed his hand from Zemo's grip and shoved the man back. Then he launched the final missile from his knee compartment at the control panel. His satisfaction was potent when he saw the console go up in a ball of fire and smoke, heard the cries of the men trying to restore it. And nothing exploded outside, so that was comforting. But his moment of triumph was short-lived. Zemo screamed in anger and went at him like a madman.

A sharp kick sent him down to his knees, and another toppled him. Then his helmet was rammed cruelly into the cement floor again and again and again until his display was flickering with failing power. Zemo was intent on crushing his head like a tin can. Tony fired the thrusters in his boots and succeeded in knocking Zemo down, but he also pushed himself closer to the channel of Adhesive X flowing from the vat. He didn't realize it until it was too late, until Zemo was on him again, holding something that looked an awful lot like that death ray cannon only smaller. His finger was pulling the trigger.

Tony did the only thing he could think of doing. He angled around, reached his left hand into the river of Adhesive X, and flung the liquid right into Zemo's face.

The man dropped his gun and immediately howled miserably, his face literally burning. Tony scrambled away as best he could given every joint in his left gauntlet had completely fused together from the elbow down. And more of his suit was splattered as he crawled through a puddle of Adhesive X. Things were failing all over as the chemical began to seep into the sensitive machinery in the joints of the armor.

Zemo staggered back, gasping, groaning. Tony watched, partly horrified and partly satisfied, as the man reeled in rage and agony. He stumbled to the rear of the room, behind the massive vats, and then pulled his hands from in front of his face.

The bloody visage that stared at Tony was the stuff of nightmares. _"Drown him!"_

Zemo melted into the shadows.

An alarm klaxon wailed and lights flashed red.

The vat in front of him tipped.

"Oh, crap," he whispered, watching as the humongous metal vessel spilled in seeming slow-motion. He tried to fire the thrusters in his boots and _get the hell out of there_, but he couldn't. The ignition system wasn't responding. The Adhesive X had sealed the exhaust ports. The thrusters in the back of his suit wouldn't open. _This is bad. This is really bad._

"I suggest you run, sir," JARVIS advised.

Tony didn't waste his breath on a retort, turning instead and sprinting as fast as he could to the ladder on the side of the well. The more he moved, the more the situation was aggravated because the Adhesive X further compromised the joints in his armor as more surfaces were exposed. Alarms were wailing all over his display, blinking red outlining the varying limbs of his suit that were becoming less and less responsive. With the flood rapidly approaching, that wouldn't matter soon.

Panic won out over control. "Shit!" His right leg, which had been the most splashed, was almost completely hard and nearly unbendable at the ankle. He forced it to move with all his strength as he limped and struggled to the ladder. He was almost there, but it was too late. Adhesive X rolled over his boots in a torrent. His suit was about to become his coffin. "JARVIS, initiate the emergency release system! Get it off me! Get it off me!"

"The suit is malfunctioning, sir. I am attempting to compensate."

"_Get it off me!"_

JARVIS rerouted power to the emergency release system, and Iron Man fell apart. The sections of the armor rapidly detached from each other, pushed away from Tony's body and the adjacent plates with a hydraulic hiss. The instant he felt his boots loosen from his feet, he jumped. His jeans tore. His shoes ripped. His _skin_ ripped. But he got free and slammed into the ladder.

With only one arm, he nearly lost his grip. His left gauntlet, vambrace, and rerebrace were too fused to each other release. He yelped and grimaced and held on tight, sliding his right arm through one rung as the Adhesive X poured into the well. The stuff stank, molten and thick and gray. "Holy shit," he gasped, freeing his arm enough to climb. He pushed himself up away from danger and rolled onto the floor above.

Tony lay, gasping and shaking. The arm still encased in his suit clunked uselessly down, the weight too much to lift. He closed his eyes and thanked God that he was still alive.

When he opened his eyes again, it was to a dozen guns pointed straight at him. "Hi, fellas," he said. Then a fist careened down into his forehead, and everything went black.


	3. Chapter 3

**DISCLAIMER:** _The Avengers_ is the property of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.

**RATING:** T (for language, violence)

**THE LAST LEVEL**

**3**

"Tony? Tony, can you hear me?"

Tony groaned in anguish. He did _not_ want to wake up. He knew there would be pain there, _lots_ of pain. Unconsciousness was much more pleasant and much easier. But that damn familiar voice and the damn prodding at his shoulder was _damn_ persistent, and pretty soon going back to the peace of slumber was sadly impossible. He moaned again when the hurt first registered in his mind, immediately horrible and unrelenting. Then he opened eyelids that seemed stuck together and saw a blurry, filthy, concerned face leaning over him. "Tony?"

Steve. And above him, the endless walls of the silo rising into the shadows.

"So it wasn't a bad dream then?" Tony murmured, closing his eyes against the awful, depressing picture. Even the paltry amount of light in this hell was too much for his pounding head.

He heard Steve sigh. "No. We're stuck down here."

Somehow he had hoped otherwise, even when he'd known it was completely and utterly stupid to do so. Hearing Steve _say_ it made it undeniably real, though the smell of the stale, chilly air and the corroded metal surrounding them and the feel of the hard concrete pushing against his aching back should have been enough to convince him. His heart shook in his chest with such unbelievable fear and grief and worry that for a moment, he really couldn't manage anything but breathing. Eventually he gathered his wits enough to mumble, "Bummer."

"Yeah, it's not good," Steve morosely replied. That was a fairly magnificent understatement.

The horror of it all was too much, and Tony let himself go back to the comforts of oblivion, sinking down into the splendid relief of sleep. But then the pulsating lump of throbbing flesh and broken bones and blood that used to be his arm jolted with sharp, _sharp_ agony, and he gasped and leaned upward, his eyes popping open. "Gya! Hey! What the hell?"

"Easy. Stay still. I'm trying to splint this a little," Steve quietly explained, and before he could think better of it, Tony was looking down at his mangled left arm. The swollen mess of his wrist and elbow was disturbing. He saw dried blood, skin that was literally black from so much bruising, and distortions under the skin that he feared were the ragged ends of his shattered bones. His fingers were quite the mess, too. His thumb was okay, but his index and middle fingers were broken, bent and swollen beyond recognition. He wasn't certain how bad off the other digits were; everything hurt so miserably it was becoming a little difficult to tell from where the pain was originating.

Steve had already splinted his fingers with long, thin scraps of fairly clean metal he'd found somewhere and strips of his blue undershirt. He had slid a longer slat of metal, nearly the width of his arm, under his forearm, and he was carefully but tightly tying it at the elbow and wrist. Tony groaned and panted through the misery. Steve was being gentle, but the slightest pressure on his arm was excruciating. The soldier looked apologetic as he glanced from his work to Tony's wincing face. "Sorry," he said softly. "Did they get it?"

Tony could hardly think as Steve carefully moved his arm across his chest. "Huh?"

"Hold this," Steve said, planting a longer, wider strip of his shirt to Tony's chest and putting his other hand over it. Tony obeyed, watching rather numbly as Steve clumsily fashioned a make-shift sling. "Last thing I remember seeing at the plant was you climbing out of the well with the arm of your suit stuck on you," he explained. He grimaced sympathetically (or maybe from something else – come to think of it, Steve looked quite pale) as he fumbled behind Tony and knotted the sling. Tony nearly blacked out from the pain as his arm, now tightly held high on his chest, was jostled. "Did they get that part of your armor?"

Tony swished the disgustingly foul tasting lump of his tongue around in his mouth to moisten it enough to talk. He tried not to acknowledge the dark and awful recollections stampeding across his brain, memories of the saw and his arm being pounded and brutalized and broken. He felt even more broken and brutalized that they had stolen his precious tech from him and he had no recourse. "They won't. The suit's rigged to self-destruct at the first sign of tampering. The minute they stick a probe in there, it will blow up in their faces."

"Comforting," Steve commented, but he didn't seem to find much solace in Tony's words. Truth be told, Tony didn't, either. He was certain they wouldn't get much information from the piece of Iron Man they had stolen. But, all things considered, maybe that didn't matter much.

Not when the three of them were trapped down here.

_Clint._

Tony turned quickly, immediately regretting the wave of dizziness rushing over him. He choked on his breath and nearly vomited, but he vehemently swallowed the disgusting burning in the back of his throat and swore he _would not get sick_ and looked around frantically. "Where's Barton?" he demanded.

Steve dropped his gaze, and for a moment Tony thought the worst. But then Rogers struggled to his feet, and for the first time since Tony had woken, he got a good look at the other man. A good look at how badly injured Captain America was. Steve staggered over a few feet behind them, closer to where the stairs that had led to the higher level had been. He knelt beside Clint, who was lying on his back. "He hasn't woken up. I've tried everything. His skull's fractured." Tony didn't trust his body enough to stand, not with his head pounding and his stomach roiling and dizziness continually threatening, so he scooted and pushed and crawled over as best he could with his bad arm. When he got closer, his heart fell into his stomach at what he found.

Clint's head was covered in blood. It had matted in his short brown hair, turning it into a ruddy mess flattened and pasted to his skull. His skin was very gray, his eyes sealed tightly, bruised, and ringed in shadow. He wasn't moving. Was he breathing? Tony was afraid to look, but he did. Hawkeye's chest was moving up and down, weakly and slowly. But he looked like he was dying. A flash of memory rushed through Tony's thoughts of Clint flying across the room, of him striking the catwalk and then falling and his head pounding into the hard, hard concrete. Steve had wrapped the injury in more of his shirt to try and stop the remainder of the bleeding, but beyond that, there wasn't much they could do and they both knew it. He needed a doctor and emergency treatment in a sterile environment. They all did. Desperately.

"I don't know what to do," Steve helplessly admitted. In the stillness his voice was booming. "I don't think his neck is damaged, but there's an awful lot of swelling." The unmasked guilt and worry in Steve's voice was downright palpable.

A tense, quiet moment crept escaped them. Tony wasn't one to do the whole comfort thing, but he felt compelled to say something because Steve looked _absolutely_ wrecked. "It wasn't your fault, you know."

Steve jerked. Tony could practically see his teeth grinding. "Yeah," he muttered darkly. "Tell him that when he wakes up."

_If he wakes up_. Tony didn't want to think about it, but head injuries of this sort of severity were usually fatal. Without proper treatment, Clint didn't stand much of a chance. None of them did, Steve included even if he was trying his damnedest to act like he didn't have more blood on him than in him. His chest was badly bruised and his back looked like he'd been whipped with something viciously. Somebody (multiple somebodies) had kicked the crap out of him. The sound of Steve's hoarse screaming echoing through this hell filled Tony's head anew, and he winced at the awful memory. The stab wound through Rogers' shoulder wasn't bleeding much anymore, at least, but it had heavily done so at one point. The wide wound looked enflamed and painful, front and back. And his other shoulder was obviously dislocated, the bone sticking out oddly. Steve held that limb to his chest, and suddenly his halting, uncoordinated efforts to sling Tony's broken arm made sense. Tony had no idea how he'd gotten his shirt off given the state he was in. He was wheezing but trying hard to be quiet about it.

"You look rough, Cap," Tony finally said. That, too, was a ridiculous understatement, but he didn't know what else to say.

Steve grunted, shivering slightly in the cold air, hardly breaking his gaze from Clint's blank face. "I'll be okay." _Bullshit._ Tony felt it all press down again, the pain and the fear and the weight of this awful place. The long, _long_ way up. He tipped his head back and released a long breath. The lights had stabilized somewhat along the bottom of the silo, flickering randomly but generally providing steady illumination. Above where the higher levels were, it was pitch dark. A swirling abyss of sable that was barricading them from the outside world. They were locked in this gray and brown prison, a massive cell built of concrete and metal and rust and debris that was made all that much more terrible by its size. They had no food. No water. No supplies. They all seriously needed medical attention. And he had no idea how they were going to escape or if it was even possible. He could only think of Zemo's cruel words. _"There's no way out. No way up. No hope."_

No hope.

God, his arm _hurt_.

Steve's placid voice cut through the storm of despair. "I need someone to reset my shoulder, though. I can't use it like this."

That seemed so mundane, so _stupid_, and Tony couldn't help the acid spilling from his mouth. "What do you want me to do about it with this?" he snapped bitterly, gesturing with his good hand to his useless arm.

Steve's blue eyes flashed in anger. "I don't know, but something. If Clint can't… If he doesn't…" He looked away sharply and then closed his eyes. "I can't do anything with my arm like this."

_No shit._ Tony closed his eyes, too. It was kind of involuntary, a subconscious attempt to escape it all. He stayed in that little shred of peace for a moment, fighting to ignore the pain and the cold, rank air and the smell of rust and the shadows. "Tony, I'm scared, too." Tony looked at Steve and found nothing but open sincerity on his dirty face. That wasn't something he himself would ever openly admit. It wasn't anything Steve would readily admit to, either. Captain America was never afraid, never unsure, never lost for a plan. In all the scrapes they'd been in together as a team, Steve had always been able to lead them out, to find a way through. A way to win. So to hear him say that he felt as terrified as Tony did was both disturbing and comforting. Comforting because Tony knew wasn't alone in fearing their monumentally bleak odds. But disturbing because if Steve didn't know what to do, who did?

Steve sighed. "I'm really scared," he confessed in a soft tone. "But we have to keep level heads if we want to have any chance at all of escaping. Coming apart at the seams doesn't help us. We're too hurt to waste energy on crying. So let's hold it together." He reached bloody, grimy fingers over to grab Tony's unhurt hand. Tony wanted to flinch at the contact but didn't. Everything, even that, felt repulsive in this hellhole. "I have faith. There's a way out, and we can find it. Let's not give up before we even try, okay?"

Tony appraised his friend, his friend that he'd inexplicably grown to trust when he didn't really trust anyone. Except Rhodey and Pepper. And he trusted the Avengers. He trusted Steve. He knew beyond any doubt that Steve believed what he was saying, that he wasn't just lying for his sake or to bolster his morale. Steve Rogers didn't lie, and he didn't give up. He was quiet and too freaking serious at times, but he held the Avengers together like no one else could, smoothed out the rough edges and brought their disparate and difficult personalities together to function as a powerful and reliable team. He could do that because he was a genuinely good and strong person, and those things were damn hard to come by nowadays. Tony might have teased him about it, but underneath he really envied Steve sometimes. But their leader was a hell of a naïve kid, too, and Tony knew better to subscribe to empty platitudes and silly hopes when the facts directly suggested otherwise. Trust was one thing. Blind faith? Tony _never_ had that.

But he only released a long breath. Steve deserved him trying. Plus he was right (even if Tony wouldn't admit it to him). And surrendering wasn't his style, either. "Sure, Cap. You got it."

Steve seemed mildly surprised, but his eyes shone with a little appreciation as he firmly nodded. The commanding visage of Captain America wasn't so inspiring when it was tinged with pain and worry, but Steve was doing his best to seem in control. Tony might have laughed at how stupid that was – they had _no_ control over anything – but he was too consoled by the fact that Steve was trying to help them to do anything other than follow along. "Alright," Steve breathed more than said. He looked about, blinking a few times like he was trying to clear tears from his eyes or something. "Alright. Now I checked around while you were out, but I couldn't find any obvious doors or even weaknesses in the walls. I couldn't get a good look over there –" He gestured to where the remains of the catwalk were. "– because of the mess, but I doubt there's anything back there, even if we could get to it."

"No," Tony said morosely. "The only way out is up."

Steve grimaced. "I was afraid you were gonna say that." He appraised the area again, slowly, as if taking in the horrid surroundings for the first time. Metal rails, red with rust and corrosion, ran up against the walls into the darkness. In a few equally distant spots around the circular bottom of the silo the number "8" was painted on the cement. It was worn and weathered. There was debris all around them, scraps of metal, bits of blackened plastic and shredded, filthy cloth. Things that had fallen down from the levels above into the deep bottom. "What the hell is this place?"

"It's an underground ICBM launch facility," Tony answered, joining Steve in peering into the blackness above.

"A what?"

"An ICBM. Intercontinental ballistic missile. You know about the Cold War, right?" Steve nodded, looking increasingly displeased. Tony sighed and went on in his history lesson. "Back when the US and the Soviet Union were preparing to blow each other to kingdom come, a ton of these things were built to house nuclear missiles. They were made to survive a nuclear strike from the opposing side. They only had one purpose: fuel the missile and fire."

"I take it they've been disarmed," Steve said.

"Through countless treaties and negotiations. And technology has made the means of mass death and destruction significantly smaller, so these huge missile silos were all abandoned when they became obsolete. Abandoned and left to rot and rust." Tony gave a rueful grunt. "Although I hear there are some real estate firms in the US trying to sell these things as luxury underground homes. Gotta admit I was kind of curious. So here's to learning something new. I can now safely say that I'd _never ever_ want to live in one."

Steve shook his head. "We're not in the US, though."

"No," Tony agreed. "Probably in Eastern Europe somewhere. That's what Zemo told me, and it makes sense given where all the shit went down. In one of the old Soviet satellite republics, probably. Latveria. Who knows. Doesn't matter." His eyes drifted to that scrap of metal lying idly on the floor near them. He caught the edges of his company's old logo, and he closed his eyes in anger and disgust. "Apparently even back then Stark Industries' technology wound up in the wrong hands." He supposed when one built things that could be incredible tools for peace and protection (but also incredible weapons), it was inevitable evil men would pursue one's inventions. Technology was and always would be the single biggest advantage in battle. War pushed industry like nothing else could; his father had made his fortune designing and building weapons for the United States during World War II. What had happened in Afghanistan had opened his eyes to how callous disregard for anything other than the bottom line and profit could land the very tools he had built for good into the hands of evil. It had taught him not to trust other people with his tech. It was a lesson he didn't think his father had ever learned.

Clearly some of the components his father had designed for the United States had been sold to the other side. He furiously wondered if any of Baron Zemo's toys had been built using Stark Industries' technology. Some people would call it irony. He called it bullshit.

"Your father built these things?" Steve asked, drawing him from his dark thoughts.

Tony managed half a shrug before agony raced up and down his arm and sharply reminded him to _never_ do that again. "Parts of them, I think, when he was still a weapons contractor for the army. Then he got caught up in helping with SHIELD and less involved in the weapons R&D for Stark Industries. I don't know. All this crap happened before my time."

"Know any way out of here?"

Tony had to fight not to spout off something snarky or rude or otherwise inappropriate. He'd already answered. "The only way out is _up_, Cap. I wasn't kidding. These silos usually had seven or eight levels in them that kinda wrapped around the ICBM in the middle." Tony looked up, and Steve followed his gaze. It was hard to see in the darkness, but the sizeable square gap in the center of the floor above was identical in all the subsequent floors, straight to the launch doors. "My extraordinarily awesome powers of deduction tell me that this is level eight." At Steve's confused look, Tony pointed to the faded numbers on the wall. "Somewhere up there, usually on level two or three, there's an entrance to the launch control center. It's typically like forty or fifty feet away, connected to the silo by a tunnel."

Steve's eyes grew a bit distant with something not at all pleasant. "Yeah, that I remember."

"Yeah," Tony said, sharing his discomfort. "Anyway, there's probably another exit there that leads up into an above-ground building. But how much you wanna bet that's sealed or otherwise inaccessible?"

Steve looked dismayed. "Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe Zemo never expected we could actually make it up there."

Tony grunted. "No, Mr. Rogers… he expects us die." It was a pretty damn good impression, if he did say so himself. Steve offered him an annoyed, confused glance. "Goldfinger? Bond? Have you watched _anything _since the big thaw? Never mind. You're useless."

Steve looked even more piqued. "Can we get the launch doors open from there?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I'd have to see it."

"Any other way to force them open?"

Tony gave a bitter half of a laugh. "Not damn likely. They're two one hundred ton doors. You're strong, Steve, but I don't think you're that strong."

"Then we need to get you up there," Rogers said evenly and resolutely. He was staring up into the shadows with absolute confidence, like it was only a challenge that needed to bested. Like it could be done. Like there was an easy way (or even a way at all) to get up the sixty feet or so just to reach the seventh level directly above them.

Tony couldn't help the sarcasm seeping into this voice. "You woozy from wearing more blood than you're using? There's no way any of us can climb that to get up there. _No freaking way._ If I had my suit, it would be one thing. If I had _two_ good arms, maybe even then. But there's no goddamn way. And even if we could get the doors open and get to the last level, there might be another thirty or forty feet to the surface."

Steve's eyes flashed angrily. He didn't like having his orders questioned (not that these were orders, but Tony sensed they would easily become some). "I can do it," he insisted. "And what the hell did I just say about giving up?"

Tony ignored the reprimand. "Cap, you're in no condition to climb."

"I know!" Steve hotly shouted, glaring at Tony. Tony could practically see his temper fraying, bent and ripped by panic. Steve breathed heavily a moment more before forcing himself to calm. "I know. Which is why I need you to pop my shoulder back. I heal fast. In a couple hours – "

A low groan cut through the rising tension between them, and Steve ripped around. Neither of them dared to hope as they stared at Clint's still form. An anxious quiet slipped away, both of the Avengers holding their breaths and watching intently. Just when Tony was beginning to attribute the sound to his own imagination (which seemed pretty improbable since Steve had clearly heard it, too, but Clint was so damn still), the archer moaned weakly again. His fingers were twitching mindlessly. Steve scooped Barton's hand into his own. "Clint?" he prodded hopefully, leaning over Clint's face. "Clint, it's Steve. Can you open your eyes?" The desperation, the deep hope and guilt, filling Steve's words was potent enough to shake his voice. "Clint?"

There was no answer. Clint didn't speak, didn't open his eyes, didn't move any more than that minute shaking of his fingers. Steve stared at his swollen face, unwilling to give up hope long after Tony realized that Clint wasn't regaining consciousness. Eventually Steve dropped his chin to his chest and laid Clint's arm across his stomach and sat back on his heels. He scrambled back gingerly to sit beside Tony. They didn't speak. The disappointment and worry was downright crushing.

"Let's just… rest for a while," Tony suggested. "Just for a little bit." The silence had become so heavy that his quiet declaration seemingly echoed through the silo. Steve flinched beside him, cradling his hurt arm close to his chest. They sat shoulder to shoulder, and Tony could feel Steve shivering without his shirt. The undershirt had been thin and probably little protection from the rank, pervasive chill, but it had been something at least. Every muscle in Steve's body felt taut with the need to move, to do _something, _anything to save them. "I know we don't have a lot of time, but if you go up there and he wakes up and I need you…"

"No," Steve said, sniffing and leaning just a little closer to Tony. "No, you're right. Sleep. I'll keep watch."

Tony rolled his eyes, eyes that were burning from fatigue. The pain in his arm was getting unbearable. "Keep watch from what? Don't be a moron. You sleep, too."

Steve kept glancing at Clint. Glancing and shifting restlessly and hesitating. "You're right." The concession wasn't entirely heartfelt, but Tony thought the physical and emotional duress was probably winning out over Steve's need to act. It certainly was for him. They didn't say anything further, Steve helping Tony lay back against the awful concrete with his good arm, and then Steve settled down beside him. It was unusual, and it certainly was _uncomfortable_. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. Steve breathing beside him was so goddamn loud, and his arm was _throbbing_. The silo wasn't as silent as he thought it would be. The slightest sound from Steve was louder than thunder, and there was creaking and moaning and shifting from above. Ghostly and terrifying. Tony's eyes burned with tears. The fear was crippling, almost as devastating as the pain.

Steve grabbed his good arm and squeezed and held tight, and for that moment they were okay.

Tony was fairly shocked that he fell asleep, but he must have, because when another low moan cut through the quiet, he opened his eyes. He wondered how much time might have passed, but he quickly decided it couldn't have been much. Steve sat up beside him, not at all disoriented, and scrambled over to Clint. Tony leaned up more gingerly, digging his right elbow into the ground and pushing his aching body upward, keeping his broken arm held tightly to his chest.

"Clint," Steve prodded. His emotions were raw and palpable. "Can you hear me? It's Steve. Clint?"

Nothing, again, for another long, torturous moment. Tony didn't think he could stand Clint flirting with awareness only to go back under once more. He didn't think Steve could, either. Thankfully, that didn't prove to be the case. Clint groaned again, turning his head slightly. _At least he can move that much._ The potential for paralysis was large, so it every jerk, twitch, and slight movement of Clint's body in the subsequent minutes was quite relieving. "Open your eyes, Clint," Steve implored. "_Please_."

Clint's eyelids fluttered. Steve sagged a bit, like he hadn't actually anticipated his begging would prove fruitful. "That's it," he quickly encouraged. "Come on. Wake up."

The fluttering continued for a moment, his eyelids seemingly caught in spasms that revealed white beneath. Neither Tony nor Steve dared to breathe, waiting and watching. Finally Clint's slack face contorted into a grimace, and his eyes opened. "Thank God," Steve breathed.

Clint closed his eyes again, wincing still. Tony shook his head, relief leaving him speechless. Then he managed, "You with us, Barton?"

When Clint opened again, his eyes were glazed. Unfocused. The pink of his tongue darted out to wet his lips. "What…" he whispered.

"Take it easy," Steve said quietly. "You took a bad blow to the head. But you're gonna be okay."

Hazel eyes blinked rapidly. "What? Steve?"

"Yeah," Rogers answered. "Just take it easy."

Something wasn't right. Tony realized it right away, and his relief quickly turned into icy dread that doused his body. Clint kept _blinking_, and his eyes weren't focusing. They darted and shifted and rolled, but they never settled on Steve's face even though he was looming not more than a foot above him. "Steve…" Clint's voice was nothing more than a strained whisper.

Steve held Clint's hand tighter. "Right here," he swore. He, too, was having a dawning realization that things were horribly wrong. His gaze was filled with fear as he saw Clint feebly struggle. "Look at me."

"I can't," Clint murmured weakly. He closed his eyes in pain and exhaustion and defeat. "I can't see you." Tears escaped down his temples, cutting through the grime, and a choked sob fled his lips. "I can't see anything."


	4. Chapter 4

**DISCLAIMER:** _The Avengers_ is the property of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.

**RATING:** T (for language, violence)

**THE LAST LEVEL**

**4**

Clint was blind.

All things considering, he was taking it rather well. Tony had a feeling his complacency was due more to his brain having been pounded to mush than to actual emotional fortitude. Steve had helped Clint shuffle and stumble over to the wall of the silo, where he now sat, propped against the concrete. If it weren't for the firm surface behind him, he would have likely slumped to the floor. Steve was in the process of replacing the blood-soaked swath of his shirt with a new one (the _last_ bit of cloth they had), carefully wrapping the wound on the back of Clint's head. Steve was shaking nearly as much as Clint. When the soldier was finished, he sagged tiredly against the wall for a moment, his eyes closed and wheezing. Then he shook himself back into some semblance of strength and sunk gingerly down his knees. Tony sunk too, emotionally and physically, because bleak didn't even begin to describe their situation. And despair didn't begin to cover what they were feeling.

Clint was blind. Steve was bleeding. And Tony was broken.

They were in a hell of a lot of trouble.

"There's nothing?" Steve asked Clint, his pale face betraying how much he hoped for a favorable answer.

Barton was wheezing, too. "Just… a little light. And a whole lot of blurriness." His voice was rough, like sandpaper scratching over wood. Pained. But surprisingly inflectionless. Emotionless. Like he couldn't process the enormity what had happened. Of what he had lost. Maybe that was for the best.

The somber misery that descended was thick and cold. Tony couldn't stop himself. It was all too much. Too dark. He did what he always did when things were bad: something wildly inappropriate. He held up his hand. "How many fingers, Hawkeye?"

"Stark," Steve snapped, "that's not funny!" Tony was tempted to offer some sort of witty retort, or at least tell Rogers off, Rogers and his goddamn righteous quest to make this right when it couldn't be made right and his goddamn _need_ to protect them when they couldn't be protected. When the damage had already been done. But he was too tired and worn and in too much pain to come up with anything. And Steve was quick to continue, anyway. "It'll be alright, Clint. There's a lot of swelling. Maybe it's just that. Once the swelling goes down, your vision will come back."

That damn confidence. It was a mask, and they all saw through it. But Tony couldn't make himself call Steve on it, and Clint was seemed too out of it to respond. But he did. "Sure, Cap," he murmured. He licked his lips again. "I take it the good baron dumped us some place bad." Tony sighed. At least Clint would die not seeing the sort of hell in which they were imprisoned. "And I take it from your silence it's inescapable."

"Underground missile silo. Level 8," Tony announced.

A quirk of some rueful grin twisted Clint's lips ever so slightly. "Perfect," he said. "Next time I don't want to come to the after-party." His eyes were half-lidded, teary, and still so unfocused. Tony found his empty, unguided gaze quite disturbing. "I hope we at least stopped the son of a bitch."

Well, they had, in a way. They had stopped the bomb. There would be no gigantic aerosolized plume of poison torturing Europe. There would be no mass death, doom, and destruction. But Zemo still could have spilled Adhesive X from those tanks; there'd been enough to annihilate Leipzig for certain. And Zemo had escaped and gotten the proverbial last word. However, there was no sense in crying over all of this. There was _nothing _they could do about any of it now. "More or less," Tony eventually answered, weary of the silence.

Clint grunted. "What's the plan?"

_God, not him, too…_ "You two fix my shoulder," Steve said, "and then I'm climbing up there." Like a goddamn broken record. At least he didn't beat around the bush. Steve appraised Clint worriedly. "Think you can do that?"

Clint didn't understand. He squinted as he thought, like he was trying to remember something. "I thought you got stabbed."

Steve grimaced. "They dislocated my other shoulder."

"You… you want to try to climb up with two bad shoulders? How high is it?"

"Sixty or seventy feet to the next level." Clint looked hesitant. At least someone else thought as poorly of this plan as Tony did. That climb would be difficult and arduous in the best of health. There weren't too many hand holds; the rails would provide the only purchase against the smooth concrete. They were narrow and rusted and corroded and who the hell knew how strongly they were fastened to the wall. Whether or not they would support any weight. And then there was the matter of how one could move from the wall to the opening up into the seventh level when the circular hole in the ceiling above them was in the center of the room, a good fifteen feet from the walls on all sides. There had been a space where the stairs up had connected with the seventh level. But where it had been was dark, blocked by wreckage from something above the seventh level. That explosion after Zemo had made his dramatic exit had likely caused it. So going up the easy way wasn't an option. Instead, Steve would somehow have to jump to the middle, somehow get a hold on the floor above, and somehow pull himself up with only his raw strength to aid him.

No, no reason at all to consider _that_ issue.

A hard, irritated scowl claimed Steve's face. "Look, guys. I know. This idea is horrible and probably not going to work. But we need to do _something._ We can't just lay down here and wait to die. We've got no supplies, no food or water, and nothing to treat our injuries. We have to try to get up there, and I'm the only one with any sort of shot of making it."

"Wait. Stark, what's wrong with you?" Clint demanded with more energy, shaking his head.

Tony gritted his teeth. "They destroyed my arm. It's shot to hell." He didn't want to look at it, the painful, miserable chunk of flesh and bone held so tightly to his chest, but he did anyway. He caught one glance of swollen, distended fingers and black and blue flesh, and that was enough to turn his stomach. He hadn't wanted to admit to the thoughts dancing on the edge of his mind. Thoughts about permanent damage and handicap and the end of his life as he knew it. _"Such a devastating injury for an inventor such as yourself."_ Zemo's cruel taunt poured salt on the proverbial wound. _Not that it matters now. Not that anything does._ "It's goddamn _ruined._"

Steve's hand on his shoulder drew his attention from his dark and bitter thoughts. "Tony, I promise you: _we will get out._ And the doctors can fix it." Steve said that with such ridiculous confidence, such pathetic sincerity and calm, that Tony could hardly stand it. He wanted to believe, but he was nothing if not a realist. His hand was so mangled, so broken and crippled, that he highly doubted it would ever be the same. And Clint was goddamn _blind._ It probably could have been worse. The shattered bones in his arm could have punctured his skin, increasing the already high chances of infection. Clint could have been paralyzed or have never woken up at all.

Such consolation. Worth so little. Like Steve's empty promises.

Tony felt too low to be angry. He tried to pull together the tattered ends of his composure into some semblance of his normal self. "How do we do this?" he asked.

"I've done it before," Clint said, pushing himself up against the wall a bit. He seemed to be recovering his faculties. "Either we pull or rotate. Considering I don't think I can stand right now and you've only got one good arm, I suggest we rotate." He looked in the direction of Steve, his eyes unseeing but his heart obviously quite aware of what they were proposing. "It's going to hurt like a bitch."

Steve winced. "The longer we wait, the worse it will be." Tony hadn't thought about that. Thanks to the super soldier serum, Steve's metabolism operated at a much higher rate than that of a normal man. And, thanks to that, he healed fast. Like _insanely_ fast. Tony had seen him walk off contusions and lacerations and fractures that would have landed a normal man in a hospital for at least a few days if not weeks. He could take hits that would kill anyone else and get up like it was nothing, recover from mortal wounds without any lasting damage or even a scar. It was like built-in armor; even Iron Man had limitations, but Steve's serum-enhanced vitality and resilience seemed boundless. This wasn't the first time Tony had realized how powerful that could be. Now, with his arm mangled and he and Clint essentially dead weight in this likely ill-fated escape attempt, it was the first time he felt jealous.

A wan, weak smile claimed Steve's lips. "No pain, no gain, right?" The other two men didn't respond. Steve sighed slowly. "Let's do this."

Clint seemed hesitant for a moment more, though Tony couldn't say if it was because he was acting much more certain of what needed to be done than he actually was or because he couldn't physically see to do what needed to be done. Either way, it wasn't comforting. Then the archer closed his eyes, swallowed thickly, and tried to push himself up from the wall. His first attempt wrested an involuntary moan from his mouth, and Clint turned a decided shade of green. Tony thought for sure he was going to throw up. But he breathed through his discomfort, hunched over slightly and panting heavily with a pained, miserable expression pinching his face. Steve made it easier on him, moving to sit closely beside Clint with his distended shoulder beside him so the other man could stay put. He reached over his lap and took Clint's wrist with his good hand and lifted it to his injury.

Clint's trembling fingers swept over Steve's bruised skin, brushing over the bone grotesquely protruding. He seemed to find his equanimity. "Can you help me, Tony?" Tony scooted closer. Clint then felt along Steve's arm for his elbow. "I'll hold his upper arm. You take his forearm. We're going to rotate his arm, bending at the elbow, from his chest and toward me. At some point, the bone should slide back into the joint." Clint's soft voice was wavering. He was trying to sound confident. Trying and failing. "Relax, Cap, and hold still."

They got into position. Clint scrambled awkwardly over to practically sit on Steve's lap and legs, pushing the larger man back into the concrete after fumbling for his arm. He grabbed his upper arm (as much as he could get his hand around Steve's sizeable bicep) with one hand and found the crook of Steve's elbow with the other and held him immobile. Steve groaned and tipped his head back against the wall, breathing through gritted teeth as his lacerated back was forced against the rough surface. He held his bad arm across his chest, and Tony grabbed his wrist as firmly as he dared. He lifted it slightly to make an "L" shape, and then he waited. "Alright, ready?" Clint asked.

"As I'll ever be," Steve said.

Tony swallowed thickly and nodded.

"Okay. Do it."

It was much harder to move Steve's arm than Tony anticipated. The soldier was beyond strong, and his muscles weren't exactly cooperating. He could feel them tense and contract and relax randomly, the spasms shaking Steve's entire form. He met so much resistance that he gave up being gentle and pulled on Steve's arm harder to get it away from his chest. Steve wasn't fighting him (at least, not voluntarily). He breathed harshly, trying hard to stay still, to stay calm, but Tony could see how much agony he was in. The impulse to do this quickly to get it over with was almost unbearable.

"Can you move it?" Clint asked, blinking quickly as he stared into the wall, pushing Steve against it with all his (diminished) strength.

"No," Tony answered, dismayed.

"Pull harder. Keep it level as you rotate it," Clint instructed. "I don't think you can damage it more than it is. Pull harder!"

Tony did, as hard as he could. It was difficult with only one good hand, and it was awkward (to say the least) considering he knew he was hurting Steve a great deal. The hours Rogers' torn muscles had spent healing around the dislocated joint had proven costly. Eventually, though, after a few horrendous moments of Steve suffering and Tony pulling and Clint fighting to keep everybody still, the arm began to move. But not far enough. "Stop, stop," Steve whispered. He could barely get the words out, trembling so hard that he was physically shaking the other two Avengers. Tony immediately let go, and Steve's arm went back to his chest. The billionaire sat back with a long breath, letting Steve recover, letting them all recover. Clint slouched against the wall, his forehead braced against the cold concrete. Steve's face was glistening, but Tony didn't think all the wetness was sweat. The soldier wavered for another minute or so, trying to catch his wind and gather his endurance. Then he nodded weakly. "Okay. I'm ready. Try again."

They resumed. This time, Tony didn't waste time hesitating about how much pressure to use. He tried as hard as he could to rotate Steve's arm, and he got much farther. Steve groaned, closing his eyes. Tony pulled and pulled, and slowly progress was made. Another minute into this torture, and he moved Steve's arm far enough away from his body that his shoulder popped back into its socket.

Steve cried out and sagged against the wall. Tony immediately moved his arm back across his chest and then sat back on his heels, gasping against the hurt emanating from his own broken arm. Clint, too, collapsed to the wall and against Steve, over-exerted. They all breathed and suffered through their pain for a moment, waiting for the dark, gray hell to stop spinning and their hearts to stop racing and their wounds to stop punishing them.

When harsh panting slowed to quieter breaths and everything calmed to a tolerable level, Tony crawled over to sit on Steve's other side. "At least that's out of the way. Hurray for small victories."

Steve grunted. His face was very pale, but reducing his shoulder had probably provided immediate relief from the pain. He wiped at his eyes, smearing more dirt and blood across his face. The three of them were motionless, stressed to the point of breaking. Breathing and resting sucked all their energy. Clint was completely still against Steve's sore arm and the wall. "Clint?" Steve asked quietly. When there was no response, the worry in his voice mounted. "Clint, you okay?"

Still, the archer didn't answer. Steve scooted forward, clumsily trying not to let Clint fall as he moved the leaden form away from his bad arm with his good arm. Tony watched in tense concern as Steve maneuvered Clint's limp body to the floor. Steve leaned over him, pressing quivering fingers to Clint's carotid artery. Then he sighed. "He passed out."

"Probably for the best," Tony said roughly. "He's useless the way he is."

Steve's eyes flashed in rage. Tony realized immediately that it sounded much worse than he intended, and it implied something other than what he meant. "I hope you're _not_ suggesting what I think you're suggesting," Steve seethed.

Tony bristled. Any sense of shame or apology burned away in the face of his own ire and fatigue. When he thought about it, _really_ thought about it, no matter how ugly an idea it was, it was true. "It's better he rest than suffer. He's going to die here. So am I. How long until infection or dehydration or a million other physical calamities bring us down?" Steve closed his eyes, trying to move his hurt arm and test his range of motion. If the grimace he was trying to fight was any indication, it hurt terribly. "So, _yes_, I'm suggesting _exactly _what you think I'm suggesting!" Tony shouted, unable to keep the rage from his voice. "You should just go, Cap, and leave us. You're a smart guy. If there's a way out up there, you'll find it." It _hurt_ to say that, but deep down inside where he didn't deny things, he knew he was right.

"Go to hell, Stark," Steve snarled, incensed more than Tony could recall seeing. "I'm not leaving you. Give me a minute to catch my damn breath and then I'm climbing."

Tony closed his eyes against the unwanted burn of tears and nonchalantly settled back against the wall. He was being childish. He didn't give a damn. "Let me know how that goes, Tarzan."

He heard Steve shifting around. Heard the sound of cloth scraping over the rough surface of the floor. Then boots echoing in the chamber as the other man stood (not very smoothly from the grunting and labored breathing). Steps away from him, tentative and halting. The sound of walking got more distant. Tony cracked open his eyes to slits and quickly found Steve in the gloom. He was standing in front of the crumpled remains of the catwalk, obviously searching for a way to get on the wreckage to reach the lowest rung of the rail. It didn't look terribly stable from Tony's vantage, but as Steve gripped the mangled railway of the fallen catwalk and hauled himself upward, it supported his weight. It buckled and whined pathetically as he climbed atop it, seemingly threatening to collapse at any point. This was really unwise.

Tony gave up any pretense of ignoring Steve and trying to sleep. He watched, wincing and worrying and goddamn _hating_ this hellhole, as Steve staggered along the riser of the stairwell that was still semi-intact, holding tight to the railing. Eventually he reached the rail fastened to the wall, or as close as he could get to it. It was still a good five or six feet away from him, fitted with rusted iron rungs that ran perpendicular to it. They had probably been supports at some point, used to reach the missile this place had once housed with equipment. Now they were a corroded ladder of sorts.

The whole twisted and bent mess of the fallen stairs and catwalk shifted unsteadily beneath Steve as he eyed his target. Tony couldn't help himself. "Damn it, Steve, be careful!"

"Is that _actual _concern for someone else?" Steve tensely quipped as he regained his balance.

Tony flared with nervousness and anger. "No. As you so correctly put it, you are my only hope of salvation. So if you get yourself killed, that doesn't leave me in a great place, does it?" His attempt to seem uncaring was bullshit and they both knew it. Steve turned back and met Tony's gaze for a moment. "So, please, for the sake of my precious life, _be careful_."

Steve offered a grim nod, leapt, and hit the wall roughly. But his capable hands grabbed the rail and held tight. His strained cry echoed through the silo. For an endless moment, he dangled there, one or both of his injured shoulders threatening to fail him. Tony pushed himself to his feet and took a few steps toward the wreckage over which Steve was hanging (but what the hell could he do, anyway?). Still, before he got much closer, Steve managed to pull himself up, climb a couple of rungs along the rail, and get his feet under him to take the weight from his damaged upper body. There he remained in the following seconds; Tony could see the entirety of him shaking. "You alright?" he called from the bottom.

Steve shuddered. His harsh pants pierced the silence. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." The way he said that wasn't at all convincing. But at least he'd made the first leg of his climb.

Rogers rested a little longer, leaving Tony impatiently and helplessly watching. When Steve finally gathered himself to begin to climb again, Tony released a long, tense breath. His heart was hammering against his sternum, and he couldn't calm it. Feeling tingly with fading panic, he limped back to Clint's unconscious form and settled back on the floor beside the fallen archer. It was damn chilly, and Clint was shivering. Tony pulled Clint as close as he could with his good arm, trying to warm the other man with his own body heat. It was damn belittling that this was all he could do. Warm Clint up with a snuggle (Tony Stark did _not _do snuggling) and watch Steve play monkey in a giant rusted jungle gym from hell.

A few anxious, silent minutes passed. Steve was about halfway up the rail, maybe thirty feet off the ground. At this point, a fall would likely be deadly. The floor around them was filled with debris and the slamming into the concrete from that height would shatter bones and turn internal organs to a pulp. Tony could only pray (he didn't ever do that, either) that Steve knew what he was doing, because there was no way in hell Tony could catch him (not without Iron Man, anyway, and certainly with his poor arm as broken as it was). He was very uncomfortable feeling this utterly useless, and he was really afraid that Steve would fall. He tried to cover it with talk. "How's it going, Cap?" he called.

From way up there, Steve grunted. He paused for a moment, catching his breath. "Oh, it's great," he returned sharply. Bitterly. Sarcastically. Very unSteve-like.

"Come on, didn't you ever go climbing when you were a kid?"

Steve paused and looked down. "Are you kidding?"

An image of a scrawny, sickly, pre-serum Steve Rogers jumping to reach the lowest branch of a tree in sad futility paraded through his mind. He shrugged. "Being wimpy doesn't mean you never did."

"Tried, once, with my dad before he died. I fell. Hardly got off the ground." Steve was getting tired. Tony could tell from the way he was trembling, from the pace of his breathing. "Broke a rib. For a kid with chronic asthma, you can imagine how that went." Another image came to him, this one of pale, weak Steve Rogers wheezing and coughing and lying in a sick bed with his mother fretting over him and his father standing in the background, trying to be stoic but wracked with guilt and worry. It made him feel ashamed for some reason. It was a feeling he usually tried to ignore. Pity. He couldn't imagine growing up like Steve had: sick and skinny, continually picked on and beaten up, and then orphaned, poor and alone. Tony had had everything when he'd been a boy, everything that money could buy and more. Fantastic health. Opportunities. Toys. The best education. Of course, Howard Stark had never been terribly affectionate toward him. And he couldn't remember being really happy. He couldn't remember climbing, not with his father or anyone else. That made Tony wonder about Steve's father. Maybe all of the things he had had back then didn't matter. Maybe if Steve knew about his youth spent lonely and unloved, he would be the one feeling sorry for him.

Steve's voice drew him from his thoughts. "Actually, I don't like heights."

Tony couldn't help but chuckle a little. "_The_ great Captain America is afraid of heights?"

"Didn't say afraid. I said I don't like them."

"Same difference."

"No, it's not. I don't like brussel sprouts, but that doesn't mean I'm terrified of them."

"Nobody likes brussel sprouts. They're like the rejects of vegetables, like the loser friends you invite to dinner because you feel like you should but then just awkwardly shift around your meat and potatoes buddies in hopes that they'll disappear. But, frankly, you can't fall to your death from the top of a brussel sprout. So it's not a fair comparison."

"It's not nice to mention the words 'fall to your death' to someone hanging on for dear life fifty feet off the ground."

Tony winced. But he went on. "You can admit it, you know. News flash! The star-spangled symbol of perfection is, in fact, human! Even Captain America wets his patriotic underpants in terror." Steve grunted again. "You're allowed to be afraid of heights. Just be aware that I'll never let you live it down."

"Be aware that if you don't shut up, maybe I _will_ leave you down there. I'm trying to concentrate."

Tony bit his tongue for moment. Then he retorted because that was _way_ too obvious an opening to ignore, "Lord knows what a fragile process that is. Wouldn't want to interrupt."

"Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much? And you're an ass," Steve gasped. He was nearly at the top.

Tony smiled faintly. "Just you, dearie. All the time. Almost every time I open my mouth, in fact."

"Take the damn hint, then," Steve ground out. And then he was there at the top. Tony watched, his neck starting to ache from looking up so much, as Steve glanced at the hole in level 7 in the center of the room. The distance was only fifteen feet, but considering how dangerous it was to make the jump, it might as well be a hundred.

"Now what, Captain Know-It-All?" Tony demanded.

He saw Steve, so high above him now and partially embraced by the shadows dripping down from the level above, shake his head. He was looking over his shoulder to the hole. "Jump," he said simply.

Having feared that answer from the start of this escapade, Tony rolled his eyes and swallowed his horror. "Oh, that's a freaking _brilliant_ idea. How the hell did you ever earn the 'Man with the Plan' slogan?"

"You got a better one?" Steve snapped.

He didn't. It was killing him. "No."

"Then shut up and pray."

Tony was unable to think of anything else to say as Steve angled himself around so that he was facing the distance he had to cross. He would need to jump up a few feet in addition to the area he needed to cover horizontally. This was insane. Madness. Stupid, stupid, stupid…

A goddamn leap of faith. Literally.

Steve was going to plummet to his death. He was going to jump and miss and fall and die.

Tony was never more certain of anything in his life.

He was speechless, thoughtless, as Steve spent another infinitely long minute judging the distance. Then Rogers bent his legs as much as he could and propelled himself through the air with a mighty leap and a ragged cry.

For a horrendous second, it looked like he wasn't going to make it. He'd misjudged the distance. He was too low and too far away. He seemed to fly through the air forever, his arms and legs pin-wheeling, a white and blue blur in the blackness. But he was too low and too far away for sure. Tony's heart stopped. _He's not going to make it!_

Steve's hands slammed into the other side of the gap. He grabbed the metal, but his momentum was too much, and his left arm lost its grip and fell away. _"Steve!"_ Tony screamed. Steve was dangling by a single arm, spending an awful, precarious eternity a breath away from falling. But then he gave a rough howl of effort and got his other arm back up there. With both hands securely grasping the floor, he pulled himself up and disappeared onto the seventh level.

Tony was shaking. His eyes scanned the shadows, the shadows that had swallowed Steve whole. He felt terrified and completely alone. The silo was silent. "Steve?" he called, his voice tremulous and meek. There was no answer. "Steve?" he tried again, louder and more forcefully, fear feeding his anxiety.

Much to his immense relief, Steve's head appeared above as he leaned over the hole. "I'm okay," he assured. His voice, strong and relieved, bounced along the walls.

Tony closed his eyes. _Thank God._ Thank God Steve was Captain America and strong enough and resilient enough to have made that climb, even as injured as he was. Thank God he'd succeeded in that jump. Thank God, they had a chance! The very enormity of it all left Tony reeling. "Good," was all he managed to say.

"I'm gonna look around and see what I can find," Steve announced. Then, in a blink, he was gone.

Tony looked around up there frantically. "Steve. Steve! Keep talking to me, okay? Rogers!" He felt sheepish asking (and a little embarrassed at the raw panic in his tone), but only for a moment, because he frankly did _not_ want to be alone in this terrifying pit. And with Clint dead to the world and Steve all the way up there, he definitely felt alone. "Just so I know you're alright!"

"Sure, Tony!" came Steve's reassuring shout echoing through the silo.

Since there was nothing else he could do, Tony hugged Clint closer to him and waited.


	5. Chapter 5

**DISCLAIMER:** _The Avengers_ is the property of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.

**RATING:** T (for language, violence)

**THE LAST LEVEL**

**5**

There was an awful lot of noise coming from up there. Clanking. Thudding. Creaking. Tony periodically looked up when a particular loud clang or bang resounded, but for the most part he'd given up watching. All he could see were shadows despite the abundance of sound, and his neck was really starting to hurt. And he was tired. But he kept himself awake, no matter how his eyes burned and his arm throbbed and his empty stomach roiled and ached. As much as he needed to hear Steve's voice, he knew Steve needed to know he (and by extension, Clint) was okay, too. It was too hard to really carry on a conversation. It required shouting (which his dry, clenched throat didn't want to do), and everything echoed so bad that his responses to Steve's most indecipherably comments were equally garbled. Their conversation had quickly been reduced to the barest of questions and the simplest of affirmations: "You there?" and "Yeah" or "Okay?" and "Sure". It wasn't much, but at least each knew the other was alright.

However, despite his best efforts, as the long, quiet, boring minutes rolled lethargically onward and the panic and excitement of Steve's successful climb grew more and more distant, Tony found his exhaustion was winning. He caught himself dozing a few times, slipping away unwittingly but not entirely unwillingly into the comforting pall of oblivion where things weren't quite so bleak and painful and frightening. It was only thanks to Clint coming around that he didn't pass out.

The archer moaned where Tony had propped him against his good arm. He had said good arm wrapped around Clint's chest, both to hold him up and to provide some warmth and comfort. Clint's bandaged head was turned slightly to lessen contact between the skull fracture and Tony and thus keep the pressure off of the wound. Tony looked down on the fallen man worriedly as he stirred and groaned hoarsely again. His eyes opened, as sightless and hazy as before. "Stark?"

He wasn't sure how Clint so quickly and easily knew it was him. Master assassin senses, surely. "Yeah, Barton," he responded. "The one and only."

"What's happening?" His voice was barely more than a whisper.

Tony sighed, long suffering. He didn't mean for it to sound so depressed. This was progress, undoubtedly, but hoping for the impossible was stupid. He knew it, and he never did it. Just because Steve had made the climb up to the seventh level didn't mean they had a chance in hell of getting out of this deathtrap. It didn't. "Steve's saving us," he grumbled.

"Oh," Clint said. "That's good." _Maybe. If the moron doesn't get himself killed._ It got quiet between them, and Tony found himself looking upward as another series of loud clangs and thuds reverberated through the vacuous silo. He didn't know why he bothered. He couldn't see a damn thing from here. Frustrated, he averted his eyes to one of the many piles of rubble strewn across the floor of the eighth level. The goddamn _pit_. "He made it up there?"

Tony had thought Clint had lost consciousness again, he'd gotten so quiet and still. Much to the contrary, the archer was struggling to sit up in Tony's embrace. "Yeah. Captain America did his hero thing and now he's up there and we're down here and I'm not sure that's a good thing." Again, the words sounded pretty bitter. More bitter, anyway, than they should have been. Steve _was_ up there and Steve _would_ save them because if it could be done, if _anyone_ could do it, it was Steve. The war between logic and hope, between despair and faith, waged inside Tony's heart. He didn't know what side he wanted to win.

Clint grunted. "Better than dying down here," he said. Tony supposed that could be true.

They were silent for a while. Despite themselves, Clint made no move to leave Tony's embrace, and Tony made no effort to let him go. In this dark prison, all sense of embarrassment or reticence was rapidly fading. They weren't terribly close, not any of them, and they all had their issues with friendships and nearness and weakness. Their time together as a team had begun to ease their tensions with each other, but they were all so damaged, battered by pasts that would have left most people lost. Here they couldn't afford that, and it was as if Tony's mind, so abused by trust and so typically threatened by close contact, subconsciously realized it. The Avengers had been in numerous life-or-death situations together, and that sort of stress and fear and worry forged something deeper than friendship. And here, where they could only live or die _together_, there couldn't be anything else.

Clint's soft voice was booming, and that made his words all that much heavier. "He should leave us. Get out of here. He can probably make it."

Tony grimaced. When he'd said that before, he'd meant it, but it hadn't been so serious a thing, so possible. But hearing Clint say it made it very real. His throat tightened. Clint was a pragmatist, very no-nonsense and calm, with a cool head and a clear eye. If he thought Steve ought to leave them to their dire fate, it was surely Rogers' best course. The thought hurt enough to make his eyes water. "Yeah, well," he said, his voice made even rougher by barely restrained emotion, "I told him the same thing, but you know him. Believes the hero bullshit more than any of us."

"Maybe that's a good thing," Clint murmured. "I sure as hell don't want to die blind and stuck in this metal pit with you." Maybe the archer was trying to be comical, or at least comforting through dismissal of the seriousness of what they faced, but the words came out too raw and weak to be anything other than painful. "Can think of a few better ways to go." The comment was soft and rueful.

"Not wise to be pissing all over your seeing eye dog," Tony returned but without even a shade of his normal acidity.

"Probably not," Clint agreed, "but I don't think things can get much worse."

"For you?" Tony asked, because Clint's calm appreciation of how bad everything was was just too damn much to stand and he wanted some distance.

"For us."

_Probably not,_ Tony thought sadly. Another loud clang seemed to vibrate the entire silo, the goddamn metal can shaking under their frozen rears as Steve did who the hell knew what up there. There was a frustrated shout on the tail of the massive bang, so at least Rogers was alright. Clint was looking up, too. Looking with squinted eyes that didn't focus and a wince on his face. "Is he tearing the whole place down?"

Metaphorically or literally, Tony doubted it. "One can only hope," he said.

"Hope is pretty goddamn useless." Normally, Tony didn't care too much about what other people felt. But Clint's tranquil despair, the dichotomy of so calmly feeling so low, was completely destructive. Like an icy knife that cut into his heart. Clint sighed and pulled further away, crossing his arms over his chest and rubbing at his skin for warmth. He stared at the ground with those empty eyes. "Been in some tough places over the years. Bad situations that only got worse. I probably should have been dead countless times in the past, but somehow I always survived. There was always a way to fight. Or a way out. An escape route to an extraction point. But this…" He sniffed. There was dried blood all down the back of his neck, and his face was swollen. He looked horrific. "I can't believe that this is gonna be it. We've been left for dead, and the others will never find us."

"Zemo gets extra points for being a sadistic bastard," Tony muttered disdainfully. "Could have just killed us and been done with it."

"Guy was like some kind of caricature. Like a lame Bond villain. Goldfinger or something." Tony smiled despite himself. Clint's morose expression dampened his happiness. "Doesn't seem like the good guys can win this time."

"You okay down there?" Steve's sudden shout made them both look up (though Clint not entirely in the right direction but so close it was almost uncanny). Steve's head popped over the side of the hole.

"Yeah!" Tony shouted, wincing at the ache in his throat.

"Can you get out of the way? Move closer to the wall."

They staggered to their feet, Clint supporting Tony as much as Tony supported him, and they shuffled to the side of the silo. A second later a collection of brown lines, rusted and worn, was tossed through the hole above. The coils unfurled as they tumbled, striking the ground loudly. They looked like elevator cables or something like that. Suddenly a little smile curled the corner of Tony's mouth. "Bond was a hack. And he never had the Star-Spangled Wonder on his side."

Clint shook his head, darting his eyes uselessly about. "What? What did he find?"

"A way up." _Maybe._ But Tony's heart began to race all the same with anticipation, exhilaration, _hope_ as he watched Steve grab the make-shift rope he'd found and slide down from the seventh level.

Despite his injuries, Steve made short work of the distance and jumped down the last few feet. He was flushed and sweaty in the chilly air, and his face held the ghost of a grimace. His hands were a bloody mess. But he was okay. And his search of the shadowy seventh level above had apparently been fruitful. "Hey, Clint," he said in a breathless greeting. "Good to see you awake again." He looked guilty and uncomfortable. "How are you doing?"

"Fantastic," the archer answered. His even voice was emotionless, as it typically was, devoid of sarcasm even. However, his grip on Tony's good arm was a painful pinch, tight from fear or tension or dismay. "Tell me you got something."

Steve looked hesitant. "Potentially," he said. "There must have been an elevator from the seventh level up to the first. It's been blown and recently. Zemo and his men probably." Tony had figured as much from that explosion. "The elevator's all shot to hell, but I freed the cables at least. We can use them as a rope. Think you can climb?"

It was an idiotic question, really. Downright stupid. Neither of them could _climb _in his condition. The blind man and the one with the mangled arm. And were it not for the fact that this was for certain the only chance of them getting out of here (and a damn small chance it was), Tony would have told Steve exactly how unlikely it was that he and Clint would be going anywhere. But he decided to dispense with the bullshit, because not being able to wasn't an option. They were Avengers. It was time to muster up some impossible.

Clint closed his useless eyes. "Don't need to see to go up." His tone wasn't so stoic now; he was afraid, and rightfully so, of what Steve was suggesting. The dizziness, the weakness and pain from the concussion, the goddamn _distance_ between the lowest level and the next one up…

Steve didn't say the obvious, didn't voice his own futile concerns. This had to be done, and they all knew it. "The cables are still running through the pulleys, and they turned when I tried to move them. I think we can use it to get you up there, Tony. I don't want to risk more than one. It doesn't look completely stable. I did the best I could to reinforce it, but… I don't know." Steve looked wary for a moment but only that. The commanding visage of their team leader came back, but every minute they spent in this place was eroding his strength and their belief in it. "Tony, I'm gonna tie the cables around you so you can steady Clint on his way up. Then he'll climb. I'll follow. Once both of us are up there, we'll pull you up. Got it?"

"Sounds smashing," Tony quipped. "Like some amusement park ride from hell."

They didn't talk anymore then. For the first time since regaining consciousness there, Clint got up on his feet and walked around. He stayed close, his hands spread before him in a small area that Steve assured him was free of debris, taking tentative steps. He was very clearly testing his balance, trying to get his body, with its limbs so finely tuned to sharp vision, acclimated to movement without its strongest sense. While he did this, fumbling and shuffling and wandering blindly about, Steve took the rusty cables from where they rested on the ground. It was fortunate there was extra length to them, about ten feet of it, or else this plan would have never succeeded. He took the corroded metal wires, his hands already cut raw and bleeding from abuse, and wrapped them tightly around Tony's waist. Tony helped as much as he could considering how badly his arm was hurting. Standing was damn dismal torture, and more than once he found himself leaning into Steve's tall, sturdy frame as the soldier worked to construct him a harness. The blue light of the arc reactor bathed Steve's face, and he seemed gaunt and pale beneath the dirt and blood. Almost nightmarish. He said nothing, eyeing Tony once or twice with blatant worry. He wrapped the end of cables around the inventor, forcing them to bend like they were as malleable as simple rope. He twisted and tightened and knotted, and after a few quiet minutes, Tony stepped back with the cables firmly wrapped around his waist and crotch. It was tight and uncomfortable, but he knew beyond a doubt it would support him.

Steve yanked on the cables hard enough to test the harness' durability but not violently enough to knock Tony down. Then he nodded his satisfaction and released a long breath. Wiping his wet hands on his pants, he turned to Clint and gently touched the other man's shoulder. "Ready?"

Clint wasn't ready. He was pale and shivering and asked the question that was troubling them all. "What are the chances we can get those launch doors open?"

His words hung on the still, stale air, desperate for resolution, for certainty. There couldn't be any. Tony wanted to lie or brush it off or spout some bullshit response, but he was too tired and worn and afraid of the truth. "If there's power to the system, there's a shot. I could even… I don't know. Maybe there's something I can do. I need to see it."

"Which is why we need to get you up there," Steve affirmed gently.

"And if there's no power?" Clint's voice was hardly above a whisper.

Tony had never seen him scared before. _Never._ Even in the worst scrapes the Avengers had faced together, even when the Chitauri had rained hellfire on New York City… Even when the world had nearly ended on top of them. And he couldn't lie. "There's no way we can force those doors open."

"Let's just get up there," Steve demanded, slowly and forcefully. Their calm was fleeting and their strength was waning and Rogers was doing his damnedest to hold onto everything. Despite himself, Tony had to admire that. It was heroic and noble and comforting. It was also sadly stupid.

They didn't talk after that. Steve guided Clint over and wrapped the archer's trembling hands around the cable. The lines were fairly thin, though thicker than most modern elevator cables. Clint was gazing at nothing, not even looking up, as his fingers explored the rough steel of the cables. "You can do this, Clint," Steve assured. "I'll give you a boost up. Tony and I will hold everything steady. Just hang on tight." Clint was unmoving, holding on to the cables, whiter than a ghost and about as firm. Steve stepped closer and grabbed his shoulders closer to his neck and pulled the other man gently to him in half a hug. "You can do this."

Clint only managed something of a nod. Then Steve crouched, tapped the archer's right knee to indicate he should lift it and step into his cupped palms, and then raised the slighter man. Clint groaned and lost his balance, and it seemed for a long, horrible moment that he would fall. But he didn't. He grabbed the cables firmly and swung his legs around them and clamped them between his black combat boots, and then he was shimmying up the rope.

Steve and Tony stood below, watching Clint's slow progress with a mixture of fear and hope and worry. Steve held everything steady. He was incredibly tense, like a spring compressed and ready to release and shoot forward and catch Clint should he fall. Tony, for the most part, just kept his feet beneath him and silently prayed that Clint _not_ fall. They were both barely breathing, hearts straining. About halfway up, Clint stopped for a moment, clinging tightly to the cables and bowing his head. His eyes had been closed the entire climb thus far; Tony imaged the blurriness was quite head-ache and vertigo inducing. Now his eyes were squeezed into a painful wince, and for a moment, Tony thought he and Steve were about to experience a vomit shower. But Clint held on again. "At least I don't have to worry about looking down," he gasped after regaining his composure.

"You're doing fine, Clint," said Steve. "Halfway."

"Getting tired," came the pained response.

It wasn't like Clint to complain. The guy had goddamn nerves of steel. Steve and Tony shared a worried look. "It's alright. Halfway there. You can do it." Steve sounded like some high school gym teacher, and Tony might have called him on how dumb and useless his encouragement was but it was the best the other man could do. Even if Steve could catch Clint from this height, the chances that the fall wouldn't damage them both were fairly small.

Clint faltered for a few more miserable seconds. Then he got it together and climbed again, though his movements now were a lot more sluggish and uncoordinated. It was obviously requiring every bit of his strength and every scrap of his stamina to continue his slow ascent. He didn't waste any more breath on speaking, concentrating on getting one hand over the other, on keeping the cables steady between his legs. Steve was rooted; the line was so taut that Tony was afraid it might snap from the pulleys and whatever he'd used to secure them on the seventh level above. Finally Clint reached the top.

"Alright, you're about five feet below it! A little more and you can reach the floor!" Steve yelled.

Clint really struggled with those last five feet. It looked so dark up there that Tony supposed whatever faint, blurry lines he might have been able to see were completely gone. He managed to go a little further, and he slid his hand along the line above his head until the cables started to bend over the lip of the hole. He grabbed the floor. "You got it!" Steve shouted. Tony winced as his own head pounded at the volume of Steve's voice. "Pull yourself up!"

Clint dangled precariously before finally gathering enough strength to haul himself up. Tony's heart leapt in joy when he saw Hawkeye's black-clad form disappear completely. "Clint, you okay?" Steve shouted.

Clint thrust his arm over the hole and gave a thumbs-up.

Steve sighed in relief. Then he looked to Tony. "Alright, I'm going up. Then I'm pulling you up. You're okay?" Tony nodded, his heart stuttering in too much relief and fear and hope. Steve grimaced apologetically. "I'll do everything I can not to jostle you too much, but let's try to make this fast. I'm getting tired, and I don't know how much Clint can help me."

"You're not inspiring a hell of a lot of confidence with this speech, by the way," Tony remarked tightly.

Steve frowned again and then started to climb. And, Steve being Captain America and stronger than pretty much _anyone_ else even as rundown and wounded as he was, was able to get himself back up there in what seemed like no time at all. Tony watched in mounting dread as the shadows swallowed him, too, and then that awful feeling of all-encompassing solitude returned with a vengeance. He fidgeted and bit his tongue and did everything he could not to call out for some confirmation that the other men were still there. A few harrowing seconds later, Steve was looking down. "Alright, Tony! Ready?"

No, he was most certainly _not_ ready. He had one good arm. His other hurt so badly that the slightest shift against his chest was enough to blind him with agony. But he made himself ignore it, because if he couldn't do this, if _they _couldn't do this, they were all going to die.

He looked up and loosely pointed at Steve with his right hand and did his best Patrick Stewart impression. "Engage, Mr. Rogers." There was no answer. Tony sighed. "Make it so?"

"No idea, Tony," came Steve's response. The tension on the cables increased, and then the pain started as his make-shift harness was lifted from the ground.

"You've never seen _Star Trek_, either?" Tony asked, gritting his teeth against the discomfort. He held the lines tight with his good hand and breathed through the misery.

"You can show it to me when we get out of here," Steve replied loudly.

It was too terrible to consider that never happening, so he didn't. As Steve lifted him, he squeezed his eyes shut, both because the ever-growing distance between him and floor was distressing and because it hurt so damn much that he was afraid he would cry otherwise. He performed stellar feats of aeronautic aerobatics with Iron Man, flying so high and far and fast that most people would puke just thinking about it. The forces to which he subjected his body were dangerous (and thrilling), and he was never this afraid. He trusted his suit, the systems he'd spent months and years perfecting, the metals he'd molded himself, the power from his own arc reactor. It wasn't that he didn't trust Steve; he did, with his very life. But the feeling of helplessness, of nakedness, of vulnerability and utter exposure, was too much to bear.

The long minutes passed. Every harsh breath echoed through this empty, corroded hole. "You doing okay?" Clint called.

His arm was _really_ hurting. He could hardly breathe for the stabbing, throbbing, pounding misery emanating from his shattered limb and spreading like molten fire all over his body. "This is shit," he gasped, but he didn't think they could hear him. He tasted wet salt and realized it was tears. His good arm was shaking with the strain of holding his body upright. "Worse than goddamn Afghanistan."

"What, Tony?"

He choked on a sob but managed to swallow it back down. He didn't want to talk about this, about the other horrors in his life. Not here and not now. But he repeated himself anyway because he wanted to complain. "I said this is worse than Afghanistan!"

It was quiet for a minute. "Worse than the war, Cap?" Clint asked, and Tony chanced opening his eyes and looking up. He saw Clint steadying the lines as they slowly crossed the lip of the floor of the seventh level.

Steve grunted and when he answered, it sounded like he could hardly spare the breath to talk but was doing it anyway for Tony's sake. Tony couldn't see him. "This is pretty bad," he ground out. "Maybe."

Clint grunted, too. "Got shot once and dumped in the Vaga River in Russia in October. That was pretty bad. I can say with absolute certainty that that river is mostly ice that time of year."

"Froze to death in a plane. Literally," Steve returned. The way he said that, so openly and levelly, was inexplicably comforting. Tony knew there were few things that Steve Rogers _never _talked about and how he was lost in the war and frozen for seventy years was one of them, but here he was, commenting on it like it was just one of those things that happened, and somehow that made all of this hell seem like it could just be one of those things, too. One of those things that you survived, that either killed you or made you stronger, that became a bad memory in time if you lived. Like Afghanistan.

"Suffered through being poisoned by my own arc reactor for days. How's that for shitty?" Tony offered. He licked his dry, cracked lips and tried to ignore the world spinning as he literally _spun_ on the wires. "I had to invent a new element to get myself out of that one. Pretty damn remarkable. Good thing I'm a genius. I might have died otherwise."

It was quiet. Tony gathered up the courage to glance around and found himself about halfway there. "Had to bulls-eye a tiny button from the bottom of a trash incinerator once or else Nat and I would have been burned alive. Stank forever after that."

"Got hit with nerve gas once during the war. The Germans weren't much for using that stuff, but HYDRA was less civil, I guess if you could call the Nazis such a thing. It didn't do much to me, but the guys I was with… They weren't so lucky." Steve's little tale was terrible. Even he realized it, and for a moment Tony's upward motion halted. "Sorry."

Tony couldn't picture it, didn't _want_ to picture it. In the oppressive silence that followed, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind to change the subject. "Peed in my suit once."

The other two men didn't respond right away. Then, exasperated, Clint said, "Are you serious?"

"Would I lie about something like that? Or anything? Yeah, I'm serious. There isn't always a chance to tinkle before battle – "

"Oh, that is a load of crap. What? Were you drunk?" Clint asked.

Tony winced. His memories of his birthday party weren't great. He did recall making an ass of himself in front of quite a large crowd and, more importantly, in front of Pepper and Rhodey. "Yes. But that's irrelevant! I told Pepper there was a filtration system built in the suit, and there was, in theory. Okay, only in my head. Hadn't actually implemented it, but urine is sterile, so it was no biggie."

"That's disgusting," Steve commented around a gasp.

"God damn it, Stark," Clint said. "I have to say my favorite part of being an Avenger is all the stupid shit that I have learned about you that I frankly never wanted to know. That I could have died happy not knowing."

"Well, now you can die happy knowing. See? It's all good."

"We're not gonna – " Whatever Steve wanted to say was cut off by a loud screech, the sound of metal bending. Bending badly. Literally collapsing. Tony didn't know what it was, but he knew it wasn't good.

He heard Steve curse. Really curse. The paragon of American virtue _never_ swore like that. "Hang on, Tony!"

The cables jerked, and he was falling. Falling. Then abruptly he stopped. Tony screamed when the jolt ripped through his jeans and at his flesh beneath the steel harness. The wires snapped against his broken arm. He lost his grip and dangled wildly for a moment, whipped around viciously like a rag doll as Steve and Clint struggled above. The pain was excruciating, sucking the air from his lungs, draining his mind of thought. He could hear shouting over the roar of his heart, but he couldn't make sense of the words. The world spun and he choked and fought not to be sick, not to succumb to unconsciousness. Vaguely he knew they were yanking harder and harder on the cables, fighting to pull him up. Vaguely he heard shouting. Vaguely he knew he was in serious, maybe even mortal, danger. Vaguely.

He faded away. Down into the darkness, where the pain wasn't so strong. Where there was distance, blessed distance, from how badly he hurt. Numbness. Nothingness.

Not nothingness. Somebody calling his name desperately.

"Tony! _Tony!_" He cracked open his eyes and saw shadows. Blackness. He blinked away the tears. There was a filthy hand reaching toward him. Not toward him. Not exactly. Near him. "Give me your hand! Tony!" He still couldn't understand the words. It was like they were flying at him through a vacuum, distorted and stretched beyond comprehension. "Tony! Try! _Stark!"_

His arm was moving, moving of its own volition, pulling him up the cables, righting his body. He reached. He grabbed the hand stretched toward him, felt quivering fingers clench his, felt warm flesh and bones. And that snapped him out of the haze.

Clint shuddered and then reached his other hand down blindly and secured his grip on Tony. He pulled. Tony let loose a wrangled cry as his broken arm was banged again, rammed against the lip of the floor, but this time he refused to succumb to the pain. He kicked fruitlessly, but his feet never did anything but cut through air. It seemed he would never get up, never get to safety. But then he did. With a hoarse yelp, Clint yanked Tony up high enough to ball his fist into the inventor's shirt. Then he hauled him onto the seventh level.

Steve howled. Tony opened eyes he'd squeezed shut to see Steve struggling to grab a mangled, broken mass of metal in place where it had slammed against the lip surrounding the hole. It was the remains of the elevator pulley system, balanced precariously, teetering over edge with only Steve holding it back. The cables were attached to it, and the cables were still fastened around his waist. And worse than that, the steel wires were trapped under the hulking mass and tangled up in the apparatus so that the dozens of feet of length that had once existed between the end of the line and the elevator wreckage had been reduced to a mere few feet. If it fell, he would, too.

_Oh, shit. Oh, shit!_

"Clint, hold this! Hold it!" Steve ordered. Clint pushed Tony away, clambering out from under the fallen billionaire and crawling over to Steve. He felt along the floor, felt for the familiar sturdiness of Steve's shaking body, and then joined him in grabbing the humongous chunk of wreckage. Steve was shaking with strain, and his eyes were wide with terror. "Tony! Get over here! Hurry!"

Tony faltered for a moment, his mind far behind his body. He scrambled over to Steve, who sacrificed one hand on the heavy, tipping debris to pull at the cables fastened so tightly around Tony. Tony helplessly fumbled to help, but he couldn't do anything, too weak and with just his one hand, so he panted and watched, darting his eyes between that goddamn mess of metal about to drag him back down to his death in the pit and his two teammates struggling to stop it. Clint trying to hold it back. Steve fumbling at his waist. Bending and twisting and frantically pulling. Steve was panicked. _Panicked._

"I can't hold it! I can't!" Clint wailed.

The loops around Tony's groin fell free. He floundered to push the metal away from his legs. Steve abandoned aiding him, pivoting back and grabbing the pulley system again with both hands as it lurched another couple inches closer to the edge. He groaned, taking the majority of the weight away from Barton. "Shit! Need some help!" Tony shouted as he fumbled and fought but his useless hand was shaking too badly to do anything with the remains of the harness. Horror left him reeling. "_Help!_"

Steve let loose a cry of frustration, grabbing the cables and yanking at where they were tangled up in pulley apparatus, but they wouldn't come free, not even with his super strength. Then he reached for Tony and caught him by the shirt and yanked him roughly closer. He hesitated a moment more, clearly debating completely releasing the wreckage to focus on freeing Tony, knowing Clint would never been able to hold it upright if he did. But he did. "Clint, let go!" he cried, and then his big hands grabbed at the cables around Tony's waist and yanked powerfully.

Clint let go. He didn't really have a choice.

The huge piece of mangled machinery immediately tipped over the edge and went down.

And it was going to take Tony with it.

But Steve took the wires around Stark's waist and pulled as hard as he could and utterly tore them in half.

A breath later, the cables slashed Steve's palms as they were violently and rapidly yanked toward the hole. They snagged and ripped half of Tony's shirt away in their attempt to take him down, but he was free, and they disappeared down the hole without him. A quiet second followed. A horrific bang echoed loudly through the silo. After that, it was silent.

Clint fell back against the floor. Steve cradled his bleeding hands against his chest before collapsing nearly on top of the archer. They were both shaking and sweating and panting as Clint grabbed Steve's arm in a desperate search for comfort. Tony took one brief, dizzying look at the crushed hulk of debris all over the bottom of the silo and then fell to his back beside them, his head landing heavily on Steve's chest. Hearts pounded. Rushed breathing filled the void.

"Guys, I have another confession," he whispered to the shadows above. Steve grunted. Clint moaned. Tony turned and met Rogers' half-lidded gaze. "I think I peed my pants again."

Steve sighed as he finally started to catch his wind. He closed his eyes tiredly and patted Tony on the leg. "S'alright," he slurred. "We won't hold it against you."

Tony smiled faintly and decided the seventh level was infinitely better than the eighth.


	6. Chapter 6

**DISCLAIMER:** _The Avengers_ is the property of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.

**RATING:** T (for language, violence)

**THE LAST LEVEL**

**6**

Tony was brilliant, and his memory was extraordinarily phenomenal, so when he told Steve and Clint that he recalled seeing stairs on the other end of the silo from a schematic of a similar installation he looked (okay, glanced) at years ago, they didn't debate. They didn't even question. They simply started walking. It was so damn dark that it was nearly impossible to see. The lights suspended from the ceilings of the levels above were operating sporadically and weakly, plunging most of the way along the seventh level into complete blackness. Their path was also perilous, filled with pitfalls where the elements and time had corroded the metal plating and left it littered with holes. Obviously at some point the launch doors had been open to the outside for quite a long time, and rain had done some fairly massive structural damage to the metal insides of the silo. There was no shortage of wreckage covering the floor; in the pitch it was impossible to tell what it was or from where it had come. All of this, coupled with their injuries and exhaustion, made their progress achingly slow.

They went closely in a single file, Steve leading and Tony in the rear with Clint between them. The levels were little more than giant rings around the central hole through which the ICBM would have passed had it not been decommissioned and removed decades ago, but that meant there was a very large, very perilous drop in the middle that was, unfortunately, fairly difficult to see. There had probably been a railing attached to the lip of the floor around the hole once, as the remains of twisted and bent metal clung sadly to the floor here and there, but the gap was for the most part open and unprotected. For that reason Steve was walking close to the cold cement wall, even though it was significantly darker there than towards the level's center.

Steve had a hand on the wall. Clint had his hand firmly planted on Steve's back and his other on the wall as well. And Tony walked as closely as he could, his hand fisted in Barton's shirt. It might have been something of a ridiculous picture; three of the world's strongest, bravest, most powerful men shuffling along, each too afraid to let go of one another. What would the media think if they ever got a glimpse of this sad scenario? _What happens in hell, stays in hell. _Tony smirked a little. The pain in his arm had become so constant that he was actually getting numb, and it really wasn't bothering him too much now. Like his brain had had it and was sparing itself more suffering. Or maybe he was still high from the excitement of their successful ascent to the seventh level, from the startling realization that they had actually _made it up_. That maybe, just maybe, Steve was right. They could get out. They could get to the launch control center, get those damn doors open, and climb the hell _out_. The thought made a giddy grin spread on his face. A giggle tickled its way up his throat, a giggle borne from agony and terror and exhaustion, and he barely restrained it.

"Something funny, Stark?" Clint asked. His voice sounded more tired than irate.

"Oh, nothing," Tony responded, unable to wipe that stupid smile from his face even when he physically and literally tried to wipe it. Then the laugh he was trying swallow broke out, loud and rough. "This is so much fun. All shits and giggles." Laughter poured from his mouth, and he was guffawing like a goddamn loon. The pale light of the arc reactor shone on Clint's back, turning the crusted blood on his head and neck a pretty gruesome purple. The archer turned around to look at him (or near him). In the bluish hue, things didn't appear quite real. Everything was twisted and misshapen. Like they were monsters. The undead. This was a goddamn survival horror video game, and they had to get up to the last level. "I'm okay. This _is_ fun, right? Not at all freezing or dizzying or claustrophobic. I'm not really in to dark places, but hey, got a built-in flashlight." He choked on a giggle. "At least I'm good for something. Couldn't hold the flashlight with my arm all messed up like this, so it's built in to my chest. You're looking kinda freaky there, though, Clint. Try a smile. You both having fun? 'Cause I am."

"Hold it together," Steve said quietly, worriedly. "You need to rest?"

Rest. In this rusty crypt? "Probably not a good idea, or we'll soon be rusting in peace." That made him laugh again, laugh until there was no air left in his lungs. "My puns are awesomely bad. Maybe this is God's punishment. You know, for all my bad puns. He really _stuck_ it to me."

Ahead he saw Steve's outline, bathed in the weird, ethereal glow of the arc reactor, move slowly along the wall. "Tony, stop. Please." He was concerned and exasperated, but he kept walking. "If you need to rest, we can just – " There was a loud bang and the sound of metal snapping and Steve's last words escalated in a cry.

Clint was suddenly grabbing at nothing. There were only shadows where Rogers had once been. "Steve!" Clint screamed. Tony snapped from his delirium, adrenaline coursing roughly and rapidly over his trembling form, and he rushed to Clint's side in one huge step. _"Steve!"_

Steve gasped and cried out again, clutching wildly at the sharp remains of the floor. The metal grating had completely given way under his feet. "Oh, God," Tony whispered, and he dropped to his knees and grabbed Steve's upper body as best he could before the other man lost his tenuous grip and fell. "Barton, he went through!"

Clint crouched instantly, fumbling for Steve even though the arc reactor had fairly well illuminated the horrid little scene. His flailing hands finally struck Steve's shoulders, and he hooked his hands under the soldier's arms and pulled as hard as he could. Steve curled his hands in the metal plating and howled as he tried to lift himself, his legs kicking uselessly beneath him. They struggled for what seemed to be forever, and then they pulled Steve up and over and onto the floor.

They lay in a heap, limbs tangled together, breathing heavily and struggling to overcome the fright. Tony felt something wet and warm seep into his pants leg, and his grimaced, sitting up and expecting to feel pain. But he didn't. "Steve, holy hell. Your leg."

Steve groaned and lifted his head. The arc reactor shone on his right leg and the horrendous gash that covered the entire length of his thigh. It looked deep. Tony wrenched around and saw the sharp edges of the broken floor that were now dripping in blood. He looked back at the weeping wound and shook his head helplessly.

"What? What is it?" Clint asked, breathless and quivering.

"His leg got caught on the grating. It's bleeding. Bad." Tony slid closer and tried to look at the wound, but Steve pulled his leg away.

Clint looked confused for a second more and then made to take his shirt off. "No," Steve gasped, sitting up more and pressing his already blood-slicked hands to the new injury, as if to hide it from them. "Keep it. It's too cold in here, and I'll be fine. I don't think it hit the artery. I'll be fine."

_Just keep saying it until it's true. _Tony closed his eyes against his frustration and anger. "Another one to throw on the pile," he muttered. _The pile is too goddamn high._

Steve made some damn show of equanimity, pushing himself to his feet with another hoarse moan and a wince. He tested his leg and then turned to the other two Avengers like he hadn't just nearly plummeted through the floor to his death and wasn't bleeding like a stuck pig all over the place. Tony wondered angrily what the lowest blood volume was where Captain America would no longer function and how much longer it would take to get there. He opened his mouth to call Steve on his utter idiocy for ignoring the latest injury, but the matter was already closed for discussion. "Tony," Steve said firmly, "you should probably go first." He gave a hard smile. "Built-in flashlight, right?"

Steve was right, unfortunately. He probably should have gone first from the start, but they hadn't anticipated how damn dark it would or how dangerously compromised the floor was. Tony shared a look with Clint before he remembered that Clint couldn't see, and then he sighed. He got to his feet as Steve helped Clint up, and he stepped to the front of their little line, eyeing the rotted, corroded floor warily now that their path ahead was more fully illuminated by the arc reactor. The hole where Steve had gone through was sizeable, a slash in the grating that was nearly two feet across and twice as wide. He swallowed his nausea and terror. How many more spots were just as decrepit, just as incapable of bearing weight? Steve grabbed his hand tightly and then reached behind and took Clint's as well. "Go ahead, Tony. I've got you."

"Yeah, this is goddamn _awesome_," Tony grumbled, inching his foot forward. He hesitated putting his weight on it, fearing the snap of metal and the floor disappearing beneath him. But it didn't, and he moved away from the wall to avoid the treacherous gap that had nearly claimed Steve's life. They walked silently then, Tony holding tight to Steve's wrist and Steve holding just as tight to his. Any sense of euphoria, of the odd delirium that had claimed him just moments prior, was completely gone. He was hot, sweating profusely despite the chill in the air, and he couldn't do much aside from concentrate on where to put his feet when the floor was such a dangerous mess. _Get to the stairs_, he thought. _Get to the stairs. We can get up. Get out. Get to the stairs._

He knew it wouldn't be that simple.

But he didn't want to state the obvious. And other things were really starting to annoy him again. He was so thirsty. His throat ached for water, water that they wouldn't find down there. He was so tired and in so much pain that the mere act of moving forward was one driven by only adrenaline and horror and panic. He knew the others felt the same. He tried to ignore the returning press of despair as the floor creaked threateningly beneath his feet. He tried not to believe that they were well and truly screwed, trapped in this rusted hell with no hope of escape or rescue, bleeding and suffering and dying. He tried not to think about how much his arm _hurt_, but it was impossible, the pain coming back as though relishing in punishing him for daring to forget it even for a brief moment. Tears sprung to his eyes. That giddy elation… That was now thousands of miles away.

"This is like the seven circles of hell," he said, his voice booming in the utter stillness. He just talked, even though he really hadn't thought to speak. This whole disaster was making one thing clear to him: he _did_ babble when he was afraid. He'd suspected that before, but now it was abundantly obvious. Clint was deathly silent. Steve was unhealthily optimistic and senselessly self-sacrificing. And he was a babbling moron.

Who the hell was he kidding? He was like that all the time. And so were they.

"Actually, there were nine circles of hell," Clint announced quietly behind him. "But it's close enough."

Tony paused to look back and saw Clint staring soullessly at the back of Steve's head. "Didn't know you were into that sort of thing."

"What thing? Dante? Catholicism? Or reading?" Clint looked hurt. "Is that a jab at my intelligence, Stark?"

"Why? Worried about my opinion of your intelligence?" Tony retorted. He went back to toeing his way across the floor at a snail's pace.

"I don't worry about your opinions about much of anything, except what you think about getting those launch doors open," Clint responded roughly. That made Tony flinch, because it brought into sharp realization how very much Steve and Clint were depending on him to do _something_ to get them out of here. He had no idea what he would find in the launch control center. He had no idea if there was power, if the systems were still operable (although Zemo had gotten the damn doors shut, hadn't he?), if he would be able to work some miracle to free them from this prison. Not knowing made him extremely uncomfortable. He didn't do well with not knowing, with uncertainty.

"Let's just concentrate on getting up there right now," Steve said. He sounded fatigued and extremely winded, and more and more so with each second that passed. "We'll deal with… with everything else when we – when we get there."

"You okay, Cap?" Tony asked, glancing over his shoulder at the shadowy form behind him.

His answer came when Steve's hand abruptly slipped from his own. He heard the dull, echoing thud of something large and heavy collapsing to the floor, and he ripped around. Steve had landed on his rear, and he was holding his newly lacerated leg with a wince on his face. Tony knelt beside him, the arc reactor's calm glow washing over Rogers' face and revealing his sweat-covered pallor and dull eyes. "I'm alright," Steve insisted, though the ragged tone of his voice and the way he couldn't seem to catch his breath suggested otherwise. Clint knelt, too, and grasped Steve's sore shoulder gently. "Just need a minute."

"You need more than a minute. You need a blood transfusion, or at the very least some rest and a goddamn gallon of Gatorade," Tony corrected. Steve was shivering. In the meager light, Tony appraised how badly beaten Rogers truly was. It was almost easy to forget when Steve was acting so strong and brave and confident. It was almost easy to forget that Captain America was still human, and even he had limits. Cursing the miserable situation, Tony grabbed the raggedly torn ends of his shirt and ripped a sizeable chunk away. Steve winced and regarded him with angry eyes. "What? It was already ruined. Here." He handed the swath of cloth to Steve. Steve hesitated a moment before swallowing roughly and taking it. Then he wrapped it around his bleeding thigh and steadied himself before tying it as tightly as he could. He clearly didn't have the strength to muffle his cry of pain, because it was loud and raw and very unlike him to ever admit how much he hurt.

"Is it still bleeding a lot?" Clint asked. Frustration and worry filled his tone.

Tony didn't trust Steve to give the other man an honest answer, so he quickly interjected with, "Yes."

"Then let's just sit a moment and get some pressure on it," Barton declared, and he scooted closer, feeling for Steve's leg until Tony caught his dirty hand and led it to the wound. Clint laid both palms on it and pushed down as strongly as he could, and Steve let loose a wrangled cry. However, Clint didn't let up, not even for a second, keeping steady, even pressure over the sizeable gash. Tony watched the dark red seep through Clint's hands and prayed he wouldn't be sick. In the thick shadows, with his own pain tormenting him and his head pounding and his belly aching for food and water, it wasn't so easy to hold it together.

They sat in silence for many long minutes, Clint continuing to put heavy pressure on Steve's leg while Steve breathed through the pain and very obviously struggled to stay awake. Tony watched anxiously, chewing the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. He knew in his heart they were well and truly screwed if Steve went down. If they lost Steve. The thought was too terrible to even contemplate, and not simply because their chances of escape would rapidly sink from probably impossible to completely nonexistent. "How is it?" Clint asked finally, lifting his head but not looking at Tony. Looking past Tony or where he generally thought Tony was. Because he was goddamn _blind._

They would be utterly lost without Steve.

"Tony?"

"What?" he asked with a grimace. He hadn't been paying attention.

"How is it?" Clint asked again softly, patiently and not at all annoyed. Like he, too, was coming to the same sad realizations. He tentatively lifted his blood-soaked hands away from the wound.

Tony made himself look closer. He nodded. "It's better. It stopped, I think."

Clint nodded, relieved. He slid his hand up Steve's body to his arm, smearing red all the way, fumbling for his hand. "You okay?" he asked. It was more than obvious he was afraid of the answer.

Steve's eyes were closed. He was so pale, and he was still shivering. For a horrifically long, silent moment, he didn't answer, as still as a statue and about as lifeless. Then he nodded weakly. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. I – I'll be fine."

"Just take it easy a second," Clint said. The calm, even tone of his voice was a godsend. Like a beacon of tranquility in a black storm of terror. "Just sit and take it easy. The doors will still be there in a few minutes." The sound of cloth and boots scraping over the plating filled the void as Clint sat beside Steve and pulled his shivering form closer. Tony eyed the few inches of distance between him and Steve on the soldier's other side and decided it seemed like miles and he was too shaken and battered to ignore that. Or to ignore the cry in his heart for comfort, no matter how much he typically detested close contact and weakness and the shallow emptiness of things like this. He gingerly moved, ignoring the shattering pain driving itself up and down his arm, and shifted closer to Steve. Steve was really shaking and his skin was ice cold.

"Can't be strong all the time, Cap," Tony said softly, not quite reprimanding, but not quite accepting, either.

Steve grunted half of a laugh. "Guess not."

They sat silently for a while longer. It was hard to tell how much time passed. Tony normally had a pretty accurate sense of time, but he was so disoriented and weary that he really couldn't tell how long they rested. He felt his eyes start to slip shut. But Clint's soft question cut through the press of sleep, yanking him from its meager solace. "Ready to keep going?"

Steve opened his eyes, too. He looked lost, but then he grounded himself with amazing alacrity. He nodded, squeezing Clint's arm in silent but firm gratitude. Then he pushed himself up, Barton grabbing him and helping him to his feet so as to keep the weight from his wounded leg. Steve reached a hand down to Tony, and Tony stared at the outstretched dirty, bloody fingers. He didn't want to get up. He didn't want to.

"Come on, Tony," Steve said softly.

Tony sighed and grabbed Steve's hand and let the other man pull him to his feet.

Then they were walking again. Shuffling. Limping. Avoiding the pitfalls and the precarious-looking sections of the floor and the dangerous piles of debris longing to trip their weary feet. Finally they reached the staircase.

It was as rusted, corroded, and dilapidated as the rest of this place. "This is like a nightmare," Tony whispered. "A nightmare filled with tetanus." Steve gave a short breath that might have been a small chuckle, but it was hard to tell. The soldier limped closer, grasping the rusty railing, and looked up. Above a few lights along the stair case flickered, revealing that the steps climbed high, much higher than the seventh level. Up to the sixth and fifth and fourth. Hopefully all the way to the top.

But there was no way to know if these steps would support them. No way to be sure. "Now what?" Tony asked even though he knew what the answer would be. He was dreading it, and with good reason.

Steve released a long breath. He was still trembling, but the strength and bravado of the leader of the Avengers was putting forth a mighty effort in returning. If Tony hadn't been so prone to pessimism and realism, he might have been fooled into thinking Steve had this under control. "We go up one at a time. I'll go last. Just in case." He didn't elaborate, but he didn't need to. Just in case the stairs collapsed. Just in case Steve needed to support them. Just in case someone got hurt (or more hurt, at any rate).

Tony sighed, grabbing the railing. The metal was icy and flimsy under his fingers. "Alright," he said, trying to bolster himself. He stared upward into the darkness above them. Lights flickered up there, winking on and off fast enough to turn faint outlines of objects and shadows into hideous phantoms. Apparitions. He set his jaw. Hell if he was going to let a few ghosts keep him down here. "Let's do this thing."

The stairs creaked, _really_ creaked, the minute he put his weight on the first step. The awful whine of metal suffering and buckling echoed through the silo, and Tony thought that it was fortunate the damn thing would break so close to the floor. But it didn't break. Tony glanced back to Steve and Clint; the former nodded and the latter leaned wearily against the concrete wall of the silo, his useless eyes shut. All the strength and stoicism Clint had exuded minutes ago was gone, and he was bleak and listless. Tony decided to keep going.

A few more times the stairs protested his use of them, but they held out. And he made it to the top. He resisted the urge to smile once he got up there, or cheer (even though that sweet, giddy elation was coming back), and instead turned back to the others below him. "Clint, you're up." Clint pulled himself away from the wall, bent and pale. Steve was there immediately to help him, sliding his arm around the archer. He led the other man to the steps, put his hands on the railings. "One at a time, right?"

"Yeah," Clint groaned. He bent a little and spit. "Feeling nauseous. Don't want to puke on you, Cap. Don't think you want me to, either."

"You want to rest more?" Steve asked, eyeing the other man in mounting concern. "And I don't care if you puke on me. I bled all over you."

"What the hell? Is this some kind of bodily fluids contest?" Tony shouted. "Come on, feathers! It's awesome up here!"

Clint managed a faint, weak smile. "Everything is goddamn upside down in this place," he said, planting his foot on the bottom step. That same loud shriek of miserable metal reverberated again, and Clint winced. "It's supposed to be down the rabbit hole, right? Not up some old, rickety steps."

"Up, down. Doesn't matter so long as it goes out," Tony replied. "Now come on."

A moment later, Clint was with him. Tony grabbed his shirt to steady him, and then he turned and watched as Steve limped his way up the steps. Now they were on the sixth level. "One down," Tony said breathlessly, staring above them. "Four more to go."

As it turned out, they climbed those four more without incident. The steps were all in varying states of dilapidation and disarray, but they never collapsed, despite their loud moans and groans. It wasn't difficult to avoid the bad areas, the places where the metal looked particularly weak or all together loose, and after the fifth level, they could almost forget how dangerous it all was. And when they reached the second level, they all sat, weary and breathing harshly but downright thrilled to have come so far.

Tony gently cradled his broken arm and peered across the second level. The lighting was in better shape on this level (thank God) and the steady illumination covered most of the floor. It was also significantly rustier here. He'd noticed during their ascent as they got higher and higher that more of the flooring and other metallic surfaces were covered in flaking brown and corrosion. It made sense; if the launch doors had been open for a few years, the levels closest to the elements, to the rain and snow and harsh sun, would have fared worse. Their surroundings were mostly red and brown. Like old blood.

He shook free from the despondent thoughts. Above them the rusted ceiling of the first level loomed, sunken and weary and tortured. It was by far the most damaged of the levels. Against the silo wall almost directly across from them was the tunnel. "There. That leads to the control center," Tony said. Steve looked, squinting wearily. In the newfound light, Tony couldn't help but wince at the blood and bruises covering their leader. And at the flush of a fever coloring Clint's cheeks. _Shit._ "We should keep going."

Rogers nodded, trying to catch his wind for another moment before turning to Clint. "Ready?" he asked quietly.

Clint only moaned from where he had slumped to his side. He tried feebly to sit up, but that proved to be a poor idea. Before either of the other two men could do a thing, he was retching violently. Steve swore softly and dropped back to the floor to lay his hands on Clint's back. The archer heaved powerfully, his fingers curled around the rusty plating beneath him as his body intently tried to turn itself inside out. Steve and Tony shared a helpless look as Clint suffered, Steve's more desperate to do something to alleviate the archer's distress, and Tony's more rooted in defeat. Clint had a horrific head injury. This had been inevitable.

Finally the torture ceased. Clint moaned, choking on a sob as he trembled. The meager contents of his stomach had been expelled long ago, and he shook with dry heaves for a few seconds longer before collapsing against Steve with a miserable whimper. "God," he whispered.

"You're okay." Steve soothed softly. He tightened his hold on the smaller man, pulling him firmly into a comforting embrace. "I got you. You're alright." Steve continued murmuring solace to Clint, and Tony watched emptily. Then Steve regarded him with sorrowful eyes. "Maybe you and I should do this alone."

"No!" Clint barked. He pulled away from Steve like the other man physically burned him, staggering to his knees and then unsteadily to his feet. It was a damn foolish demonstration of how "okay" he was. He nearly collapsed as he took a few steps away. He wiped his mouth, his face covered in sweat. His eyes were wild with panic and fear and pain and fever. "I'm not staying here. We stay together. We stay together!"

"Of course, we will. We're Avengers. All for one, one for all, right? That was the Musketeers, but it's the same thing, really. Teamwork and shit. Band of brothers," Tony rambled as he got to his feet. He set his good hand on Clint's shoulder. And he offered Steve a look. "Nobody said anything about anyone staying here. Right, Rogers?"

Steve didn't seem so sure. Frankly, Tony wasn't, either. Clint was shaking like a leaf battered in a gale. But they were all rough, all hurt and barely keeping it under control. Keeping together was the only strength they had. "Right," he answered.

Clint sniffed, trying to keep his voice level as he shrugged off Tony's hand. "Let's go."

They didn't talk again. The air was tense, laden with shame and hurt and terror. Betrayal. It wasn't rational, but there was nothing rational about any of this. They walked side by side, Steve ready to catch Clint should he step awry or lose control again. Tony tried not to think. It was damn near impossible. He was wired to wonder, to contemplate, to mull, to work things out in his head. But he wiped his mind clean, refusing to acknowledge his doubts, his fears, _anything_. Just emptiness. Walk. Get to the tunnel. _Get out._

And then he was babbling. _Again_. It was like a bad habit. "You know, fellas, as awesome as this, I'll be glad to get home. To just take a rest, you know? You guys should come to my place. We can watch a few movies, get some really tasty take-out. Anything you want. From anywhere. You want it, I can get it. We'll have a few drinks, a few laughs. We should do that more often. Hang out together when we're not fighting for our lives." He winced. "Because we don't hang out enough. I mean, I love you guys, but I'm not fond of the disasters we always seem to get ourselves into. What we really need is some R&R. Just a quiet evening at home with Thor and Banner and She-Who-Scares-the-Shit-Out-of-Me. How do you deal with that anyway, Barton? Never knowing if that woman is gonna kiss you or kill you. Must be hard on, you know, things."

Clint actually smiled. "Used to it," he murmured.

Tony cocked his head and gave a little shrug. "To each his own, I guess. Whatever floats your boat. Anyway, you guys in? For some all-expenses paid vegetating?"

Steve nodded. Tony wondered if he was just humoring him. "Sounds great, Tony."

"And we start with Bond. Because it's a sin to be ignorant of stuff like this, Rogers. You'd get so much more enjoyment out of our little escapades if you actually understood my references."

The conversation died. Tony was too tired to maintain it. There was silence among them again, deep and unyielding, but the quiet was riddled with the distant wails and moans and whimpers of the silo as it settled and shifted. It was damn well terrifying, the hideous noises this place made.

At long last, they reached the tunnel. They stood at the entrance for a moment, peering down the fairly well-lit narrow corridor. At least there was power. That was a good sign. Tony cleared his throat. "Well, we made it here. Go, team." He wanted to sound more enthusiastic, but he was too afraid of disappointment to manage it. "After you, Cap."

Steve rolled his eyes a little, reminding Tony of the events in Leipzig that had landed them in this mess in the first place, before dispensing with hesitating any further and stepping into the tunnel. Tony moved closer to Clint, who was white and whose expression was utterly blank. Like he'd completely checked out. Concussions did that. Tony knew from _way_ too many firsthand experiences. "Mind if I hold your hand, babe? I know that's rushing things for a first date."

Clint didn't respond at first. Then a glimmer of recognition filled his hazel eyes, and he suddenly sagged against Tony enough that the billionaire nearly lost his footing. "Yeah," Clint whispered.

"Bitchin'." He held Clint's arm with his good hand and together they followed Steve down the corridor.

It was so damn quiet. This tunnel was significantly longer than Tony had anticipated, a hundred feet or more rather than the forty or fifty he'd seen on the schematics for American silos. The steady _clank clank_ of their shoes on the plating was thunderous. Harsh breaths. Pounding hearts. The echoes of things past. Steve screaming. Rough voices speaking harsh words in a language Tony didn't understand. The horrendous whir of the saw and his own wails of agony. They passed storerooms, full of shadows and demons. Part of him wanted to look inside them, but he was too afraid he would find the place where Zemo's men had hurt him. Or tortured Steve. He was afraid of seeing blood or chains or that horrible saw. He shook his head and tried not to remember, but his arm was throbbing again _so badly_. He wanted to cry. He did. Silently wept. Steve was ahead, limping but every muscle of his body was taut like he was prepared for an attack. Clint was shuffling beside him, his sightless eyes tipped downward. Nobody would see the tears on his cheeks. Nobody.

He wasn't sure that made him feel better.

Far ahead, after walking for what felt like forever, the path forked. Tony didn't remember this. Steve turned back. If he noticed the wetness on Tony's face that the inventor was quickly trying to wipe away, he thankfully didn't say anything. "Which way?"

Tony left Clint and approached the fork, wincing as he tried to recall which way he'd been dragged. His memories were so jumbled and slashed with pain that it was all, unfortunately, a blur. He noticed there was something on the wall in front of them. Curious, he stepped closer and wiped at it with his sleeve. It was writing in a language he didn't recognize. "Can either of you read Russian?"

"It's Cyrillic, and, yeah, I can," Clint answered tightly, bitterly. "If I could see."

Tony winced. "Left," Steve said. He gestured at the symbols. "Left to the launch center." Tony regarded him in surprise. Steve shrugged. "There are a few things you might not know about me."

"What? That you're the poster boy for Rosetta Stone?" Tony said, stepping back to Clint and taking his arm again.

Steve smirked as he led the way. "That I picked a few things during the war. And that I might even know something you don't," he answered. "Some Russian, anyway."

"Lucky you," Tony said dismissively. _Lucky us._ He knew Steve was smart (no matter how much fun it was to tease him about his aversion to all things technological). He had been intelligent before the serum, but Erskine's formula had enhanced it all to the point where he had a photographic memory, where he learned much faster and easier than a normal person, where he was a downright tactical genius. He prayed all of that would amount to _something_, to some sort of immunity to delirium and pain and dehydration, because Tony felt all those things tear at his mind until he could hardly concentrate.

Steve led them, and Tony and Clint followed. After the long length of the tunnel which had ended in that fork, there were numerous splits and turns in their path. Steve found each sign and deduced the way. For a while, as he got more and more tired and frustrated, Tony wondered if Captain America wasn't leading them in circles. He realized they were passing dormitories and storerooms and facilities for the soldiers who might have once manned this silo. Finally, just as Tony was about to call bullshit on Steve's maze-solving abilities, they reached the command center.

A tangled mess of wires hung from the ceiling where panels had long since fallen open. Steve lifted them to allow his companions to enter, and Tony stepped inside, surprised at how small the room was. He'd always pictured this huge command center, NASA-style, with rows of old bulky computers lined up with rolling chairs. But there were only a few empty monitors, and a bunch of old, dusty controls. The room was shockingly well-lit, the series of wire-mesh encased bulbs overhead having somehow survived decades. On the wall near the console were a few maps of the installation. His eyes absently looked over the one that depicted the entire compound from a lateral perspective, tracing their path up the long silo, down that seemingly infinite corridor, and to the launch control center. He eyed the drawing of the launch doors and prayed they wouldn't be the huge obstacle that they appeared to be. Two chairs sat, lonely and forgotten, in front of the single console. A few binders were strewn about, dusty, dirty papers lying on the floor haphazardly. A bunch of wires spilled from the side of the console and ran along the floor. They looked to be in surprisingly good shape. The water damage clearly hadn't reached this place. The air was very dry and stale, and everything looked… still. Preserved. Like the binders had been suddenly dropped and the wires abruptly left and everything just abandoned. It was eerie.

"Okay," Steve said slowly, appraising their surroundings. Their hearts were pounding in anticipation and anxiety. In hope. "What's the situation?" He looked expectantly at Tony.

Tony moved past Steve and sat gingerly in one of the chairs. "Well, we have power! So that's a step in the right direction. And we have knobs, buttons, and dials." Then he looked over the controls. The labels were (of course) all in Russian. "Steve, translate. What's this one here?"

Steve came closer after depositing Clint in the other chair. The archer sagged against the dusty console, wearily closing his eyes. Steve leaned over Tony's shoulder, and the light cast shocking clarity over all of them. How covered in blood Steve was. How pale and bruised Clint was. How horrible and distended his own arm looked from where it was secured against his chest. He tried not to notice any of it. Steve murmured, stumbling over the words. Then he turned to Clint and repeated himself louder. "What's that mean, Clint?"

Clint lifted his head slightly. "Countdown time, or something similar."

Tony adjusted a knob beneath that, applying two minutes to the timer. He supposed it didn't really matter how much time he selected. "How about this?" he said, gesturing to the next set of knobs.

Steve read the label to Clint, who winced like it hurt to think. It probably did. "Launch codes," the archer supplied.

"Well, we're not launching anything, so I guess we can skip that," Tony said. Of course there was the possibility that _nothing_ would work without launch codes. He decided to tackle that problem if it came to it. "How about this?"

Again Steve read the words out loud. "Something about lighting?"

Clint grimaced and looked green again. "Lighting control. Exterior. Interior." He shook his head. "I don't suppose they have any of this in Braille. Might cut out the middle man."

Steve flashed the archer an irate glance, but the other man was slumped against the console and his eyes were glittering with what could only be tears. Tony flipped a couple of switches that he thought might have been related to the locking mechanism on the launch doors, but nothing happened. No lights. No indicators. The panel beneath them was loose, and he pulled it open. A mess of old wires was revealed. "Grab that book there, Steve." Steve complied, bending over and keeping all of his weight off his bad leg as he snatched the discarded item off the floor. He handed it to Tony. After a few flips of the pages, he realized it wasn't much help. "Try that one." Steve dutifully retrieved the next one. Tony leafed through the pages quickly. Maybe he couldn't read Cyrillic, but he was damn proficient at reading diagrams.

He set the binder to the console and dug among the wires for a moment. They were disrupted and cut. Recently. _Zemo._ He traced the power and the ground and tried reconnecting the broken lines. Without instruction, Steve helped him twist the wires together as necessary. It wasn't terribly easy with only one hand and without a soldering iron, but he managed to repair the old circuit boards (older than him, for God's sake) and get them in what he hoped was working order. Once he did, the panel lit up like Christmas.

Tony glanced over the array of knobs and switches and then to the book. It was a simple matter of correlating the diagram with the controls themselves. "Is it working?" Steve asked anxiously. He peered over Tony's shoulder.

"Think so," Tony said. He identified the locks that secured the launch doors. And the lever that would open them. "Only one way to know." He flipped the locks, watched in satisfaction as the lights on the board shifted from red to white. He rested his hand on the lever for a moment, shifting his eyes to look at Steve. Rogers stood still, watching Tony's hand in turn, and then he gave a small nod.

Tony pulled the lever down.

There was a shower of sparks beneath the panel. The damn thing was shorting! Tony recoiled, watching as his ad-hoc repairs failed. Thankfully the power surge lasted only a second, and the panel went dark. For a really, _really_ long moment after that, nothing happened. Then there was a distant rumble. A few red light bulbs scattered around the room that Tony hadn't noticed before began to flash rhythmically. An alarm klaxon wailed, making all three of them jump. The siren echoed down the tunnel and through the control area, shaking the very walls. It was damn deafening. "What is that?" Clint asked, trembling in pain as he covered his ears.

Steve looked around. A red light on another panel was flashing. "Tony, what – "

"Oh, shit," Tony whispered. Dawning realization of his monumental mistake left him cold, like ice flooding his veins. His eyes widened, and he looked frantically at the panel he'd just destroyed. An alarm klaxon. Warning the soldiers and men who decades ago had worked and lived here to vacate the silo in the event of the ICBM's launch. To get away to safety and get behind – "Oh, shit. Shit, shit, _shit!_" He fumbled for a second, looking at the controls and wondering how the hell to stop the launch doors from opening with the connections fried. There wasn't time to fix it. That timer that he'd so nonchalantly set to two minutes… It was counting down!

Steve shook his head. "This says – "

The alarms screamed. Tony could have killed himself for his own goddamn _stupidity_. "I can't stop it!" he cried. "Shit. Oh, God." It was too far to make it. Not as injured as they were.

"What?" Clint gasped, frantically glancing around the room. "What the hell's happening?"

Tony looked at that damn diagram of the silo on the wall. _Launch doors open. Blast doors close. _

_I've killed us._

"The blast doors back at the other end of the tunnel will shut in less than two minutes," Tony explained, terror leaving him stricken and lost and furious. His voice was surprisingly calm, given how massively he'd failed. "So unless we can run like hell, we'll be trapped in here."


	7. Chapter 7

**DISCLAIMER:** _The Avengers_ is the property of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.

**RATING:** T (for language, violence)

**THE LAST LEVEL**

**7**

"What? What does that mean?" Clint demanded, panic twisting his voice as he stood from his chair. "What the hell, Stark?"

Tony lost his temper. "Are you _deaf_, too?" he snarled. "The goddamn blast doors that protect the control center from the _blast_ of the ICBM are closing."

Clint's face fractured in rage. "What did you do?" The venomous words were rough and heated. "There's no ICBM! Why are they closing?"

"I don't know! I opened the damn launch doors! That's what you told me to do! I don't know what's happening! Maybe it's a failsafe of some sort. Maybe the systems are linked… Can't open one without closing the other." _Or maybe Zemo came here and set this up. Maybe he's been playing you all along._ He thought of the freshly clipped wires, and his anger and terror mounted rapidly. He shook his head, blinking back furious tears. "Doesn't matter why. We're dead unless we get out of here."

"God damn it," Clint moaned, closing his eyes and shaking. "What do we do? We can't run back… There's got to be another way out, hasn't there? A way to the surface from here?"

"Oh, yeah," Tony snapped sharply. He wanted to scream. A howl of utter despair scratched at his throat, _aching_ to be let loose. "Awesome logic there, genius. Zemo goes through all the trouble to lock us down in a _pit_ to die and then he _doesn't_ make sure the obvious civilian escape route is blocked? Does that sound _logical _to you?"

"Maybe you should have read the goddamn manual before screwing around with the controls," Clint accused. The vitriol in his tone was uncharacteristic and damn near immeasurable.

"Really? The goddamn manual that I _can't read_?" Tony grabbed the useless piece of shit from the console and flung it across the room. Pages flapped and then scattered as they were ripped from the old bindings. Guilt soured every bit of Tony's straining heart, but as irrational as it was (because _he_ _knew Clint was right_) he had to defend himself. It came without thinking. "And I don't know. The constant pain and exhaustion and hunger and unending _thirst _are really starting to get to me. I'm not exactly thinking straight. How about you, Barton? Your brain firing on all cylinders? Or are you as pathetically useless as I think you are?" Clint's eyes, even as dead as they were, flashed in murderous, delirious rage, and for a moment Tony thought the archer was going to kill him.

If he was, he never got the chance. _"Shut up!"_ Steve roared. They both stopped instantly. In the past, Steve had shouted at them. There were times when Steve had even yelled at them. But Steve had _never_ screamed at them. Not like that.

They were falling apart. They couldn't fall apart. The bitter thought came automatically. _What difference does it make now?_

_We should have stayed down._

In the seconds of stillness that followed, the alarms blared rhythmically, but not as loud as their thundering hearts or as fast as their quick, harsh breaths. Tony sank into his misery, surrendering to its perverse whims as it sucked the last vestiges of hope from his heart. As it pummeled his composure and ripped at his concentration. Shame and anger left him reeling, the scattered remains of his thoughts uselessly tumbling about his skull. The distant hum of noise in his ears grew infinite, stretching onward as hell spun lazily around him, and he wanted to die. He wanted to goddamn _burn_.

Steve's calm voice somehow cut through that awful haze in his head. "Tony's right; we can't risk getting trapped here while looking for another way out. We gotta run back."

"Doesn't anyone listen? _There's no time!_" Tony cried in exasperation and ire, gesturing at the timer counting down on the panel. There was a minute and a half left until those blast doors sealed them in the command center. Ninety goddamn _seconds._

Steve stood still, his jaw clenched and every line of his body taut with restrained panic. His expression hardened as he watched a second or two drain from the timer, and then he whirled on his heels and was pushing back to the door. "I'll stop it," he declared.

"_What?_" Tony cried incredulously. "Are you crazy? You can't stop it!" There wasn't a way. At least, not one they could manage fast enough. The panel was shot to hell; it would take him much longer than a minute to repair the damage and restore functionality. And then he'd need to figure out how to stop the blast doors from closing while keeping the launch doors open. Maybe there was an access panel by the doors or something that could manually override the controls from the command center, but they would have to find it and figure out how to work it (with it written in a language that, by the way, only the _blind_ one among them could fluently read). It was impossible. Completely impossible.

And then Tony realized what Steve meant by "stop it".

"No, Steve! God! You have no idea how heavy they could be!" Tony shouted, watching as Steve disappeared out the room.

"Just get there as fast as you can!" Steve answered back from outside, and then the thunder of his running feet reverberated in the corridor beyond, and he was gone.

The control room was silent. Still. Lifeless. Tony's knees shook, and everything seemed to sway and spin, a blur of yellow light and gray metal and ugly green pipes. He wanted to collapse, but at the same time he was fighting. Looking at that panel. Wrenching the cover off the control board and throwing it aside in frustration and disgust. His hand was shaking. He couldn't see straight. He'd made a terrible, _terrible_ mistake and he had to fix it. "Must be something. Some way to stop it. Must be something." He kept repeating it, wasting time. Wasting precious seconds on futility. "Has to be something!" His hand was shaking and he couldn't see straight and he couldn't think. He couldn't fix it.

He should have stayed down!

"Stark," Clint gasped. He staggered over to where Tony stood. "Tony! We need to go!"

Tony floundered. His mind was utterly failing him, sundered by delirium and agony, and he was the one that was pathetically useless. "Gotta stop it," he moaned despondently, unwilling to surrender even though the panel was dead and he didn't even know where to start in fixing it. He was Tony Stark. Fixing things was what he did.

But Clint cut through all that like it meant nothing. "We can't. We have to go! We have to help him!" Clint insisted. "Tony!"

Rage snapped him from his misery, and he slammed his good hand against the useless console before ripping around and grabbing Clint by the arm. The other man hadn't been ready for that, staggering as Tony yanked him toward the door. Despite his poor state, Clint was quick to right himself, regaining his balance and clasping Tony's arm as they exited the control room. They staggered and stumbled down the hall, clutching each other as the alarms wailed and the red lights flashed. The thunder of their clumsy, frantic steps on the grating was incredibly loud in the tense silence as they rushed down the narrow corridors. At the first intersection, Tony dragged Clint left. And then at the next, he couldn't remember.

"Shit," he whispered. They stood still, panting, Clint reaching for the wall and ripping his head about as he looked uselessly. Tony looked, too. Right and then left and then right again. "Oh, hell."

"What?" Clint gasped. It was impossible to tell if the wetness on his cheeks was just sweat or tears. The frustration and fear and desperation in his voice were heavy. Crushing. "God damn it, _what?_"

Tony floundered for a moment more, his pained, addled brain failing him completely yet again. He couldn't get past that panel, that damn panel that had caught fire and condemned them, _doomed them_, and how the hell could he have not seen that this would happen? His eyes caught something red on the floor and smeared on the wall and – _oh my God_ – he realized Steve had inadvertently _bled_ them a trail. Tony wasn't sure whether to be relieved or repulsed, so he settled on running. "This way," he whispered as he pulled Clint with him, his good hand latched tightly around Clint's wrist. They ran down the next hallway, Tony pouring every bit of his remaining stamina and concentration into maintaining their pace and watching for the blood drops splattered on the walls and floor. Clint was trying to match his strides, but it was difficult as they zigzagged through the maze-like tunnels and he stumbled and knocked into Tony so much that it was significantly slowing them. After a few frenzied moments, they thankfully reached the tunnel.

Clint breathed raggedly, holding onto Tony like he was a lifeline. "What is that?" he asked between ragged breaths. "You smell that?"

Tony didn't at first. He didn't want to spare a second to try. And when he did, his stomach painfully dropped and his throat clenched. "It's natural gas." The stench of the additive manufacturers stuck in with gas as a freaking safety measure was unmistakable.

"There's a leak," Clint announced. There was a quizzical, worried expression plastered on his glistening face. "I can hear it."

Tony winced, not wanting to think about it, not wanting to contemplate why the hell there was natural gas down here after all these years, not wanting to even acknowledge the mounting sense of dread gnawing at his resolve. They started down the long hallway. They couldn't see the end, couldn't see the doors down that distance. Couldn't see Steve. Clint tripped when his foot snagged on a bent section of the floor, and they paused to regain their balance. One of the storerooms was at their left. Another was at their right. Tony glanced inside as he tried to pull Barton to his feet. He quickly saw the source of the natural gas. Huge tanks of it, placed against the far wall and nearly lost in shadow. And there were red numbers on a display mounted on a small box on the floor. Another countdown. Twenty seconds. Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen sixteen _fifteen _–

"Sorry about what I said before," Tony murmured as Clint stood. He couldn't look away from those numbers. Lost. Defeated. _This is it. _"About you being useless. I didn't mean it."

Clint paled even further. "What? Tell me!"

_Should've realized. Should've known it was a trap. _Those surprisingly new-looking cables. It had all been easy. Too goddamn easy. Zemo was a clever, cruel, vindictive bastard. "I screwed up." Thirteen. Twelve. _"Run!"_

Clint didn't need to be told twice. They resumed sprinting down the long hall way side by side, Tony grasping Clint's arm. Their feet pounded on the plating, their breaths rushed and their hearts roaring as they forced all the speed they could out of their beaten and burdened bodies. Tony imagined that infernal timer counting down in his mind as he ran. The damn blast doors were too far away. And if they were closed, _sealed_, they were dead. Had Steve stopped them? Were they even open? _Were they?_

Through the sweat and tears in his eyes, he saw pale flesh and blue pants and blond hair. He saw Steve standing underneath the portal. His face was taut with a pained grimace as he pushed the heavy blast door upward as best as he could. It was obviously putting a crushing amount of stress on him. He was shaking. He opened eyes that had been squeezed shut, and when he saw Tony his miserable expression broke in relief. _"Hurry!"_

Clint's foot caught in the old, bent grating again, and he went down with a hoarse yelp. Tony skidded to a stop as he was yanked backward, and he pulled forward just as hard. There was no time for gentle touches and hesitation. Clint stumbled over his feet for a precious second. Tony frantically looked down the corridor to Steve. The super soldier was struggling more and more, and they were still twenty feet away. And the stink of the natural gas was downright suffocating. "Up!" Tony cried. "Come on! Get up!"

Clint gasped and teetered uncertainly before getting his bearings again and following Tony down the hall.

Then the timer ran out.

The natural gas ignited behind them as whatever detonation mechanism Zemo had concocted fired. It was probably only a spark. Given the concentration of the flammable gas in the tunnel, that was all that was necessary. Just a tiny spark.

The fireball that spread from the tanks in the room was devastating. Tony looked behind him as the tunnel vibrated beneath their feet, as the air was sucked from their lungs, as the heat reached toward them. The wave of burning red and orange and yellow was vast, filling the entirety of the corridor, scorching and burning and deadly. He grabbed Clint and shoved him forward and ran faster and faster and _faster_. Fifteen feet. Ten feet. The fire was licking at his back.

Five feet.

Steve's eyes widened in utter terror.

The wave was nearly upon them.

Tony let loose a scream as he shoved Clint through the blast door. The archer collided with Steve, knocking him to the side, and Rogers lost his grip. He fell back, and the blast door descended. Tony watched in horror as his chances for escape rapidly disappeared. He took two huge steps and leapt. For a horrifying second, he thought he was going to hit the door, that he wouldn't clear it, that that shrinking hole was too small for him to safely pass through it. But he didn't. The fire grabbed at him, pulled on his hapless body in a violent attempt to haul him back into the inferno. But it couldn't hold him.

He hit the floor outside the tunnel. Agony consumed him. The heavy thud of the blast door tightly closing seemed to shake everything. After that, it was still.

Panting and reeling and hurting, Tony pushed himself to his knees. Clint was lying in a crumpled heap beside him, trembling and panting, and not far to his right Steve was flat on his back. Tony quickly glanced over them both, but there was no time for anything more. Something _big_ exploded on the other side of the blast door. The silo shuddered miserably, creaking and moaning and screaming with the force. The explosion was deafening, destroying. Devastating to the old, rusted metal around them. Above them.

Something snapped, and the first level came crashing down on them.

Tony rolled and threw himself over Clint's shaking form. There was pain, so much goddamn _pain_, and darkness swooped down after the rusted hulk of razor-sharp edges and broken surfaces. The first level slammed down with heavy, pummeling brutality, and then everything slowly settled.

Trapped.

He was trapped.

_I should have stayed down. I should have died._

It wasn't too late.

Tony's eyes snapped open. They stung, and even when he blinked the tears and sweat away, he couldn't see anything. Nothing but a brown, broken cage. Debris all around him. He was stuck, pinned under the wreckage, encased in a metal tomb.

_Iron Man dying in an iron hell._

"JARVIS, get me out of here!" But JARVIS didn't answer. It took his beleaguered mind a moment to remember why. JARVIS was gone. "Steve? Clint!" They didn't answer, either. They were there with him, right? They'd been there with him the entire time. Hadn't they? _Hadn't they?_ A flood of disjointed memories assaulted him. He couldn't make sense of it. He felt like he should have been able to. "Rogers! Barton! _Steve!_" Nothing. Creaking metal. Whining, moaning. Crying. He felt something wet slide down his cheek. He felt something wet underneath him. There was so little light, just the tranquil light of the arc reactor that cast pale, blue illumination on a world of rust and shadows. He lifted his hand. It was covered in gruesome, slick red. Blood. A lot of blood. "Clint! God, somebody help me! Somebody help me!"

No response. Only the echo of his scream. His next was without words, raw and strained and horrible to his own ears.

_You stay down here and suffer._

"Please, somebody help me…" The light winked. Terror rushed over him, jolting a body that was becoming numb and unresponsive. _No, no, no no no no!_ "Somebody! Clint! Steve! _Don't leave me here!"_ The arc reactor nearly failed again. Tony struggled mindlessly, weakly, uselessly. He was alone, bleeding and bleeding and dying. _Bleeding and dying. _"No, please…"

The arc reactor failed, and the light completely disappeared.

He couldn't breathe. He was dying. Dying alone.

Dying.

_Dead._

"Tony?" Something grabbed his shoulders and shook him. "Tony? Can you hear me?"

Tony's eyes snapped open and he came awake with a gasp. He saw Steve's worried face as Rogers loomed over him. Saw the blue light of the arc reactor still glowing in his chest. It hadn't been real. A nightmare. Delirium. He wasn't dying, and Steve was there. He wasn't alone. Thank God. "Tony, just hold still."

Tony squinted in pain. Bright light bled around Steve's form like a halo. He was blinded by the powerful sight, agony shooting through his head. "What the hell?" he moaned, turning his head to look away. His mind was so overthrown that he didn't realize what it was at first. Then it occurred to him as he shifted his reluctant gaze back to Steve.

He was looking at the sun.

"I thought I'd never see it again," Tony whispered happily.

"Easy, Tony. Just stay still," Steve gently ordered. His voice wavered in fear and worry. Fresh blood covered his pale face from a cut above his brow. His eyes were filled with dismay. "Don't move. You're hurt."

That didn't make sense to him. Not much did, really. "What?" He struggled to lean up, fought despite Steve's big, strong hands pushing on his shoulders to keep him down. His eyes drifted over the bent carcass of the first level embracing them. They flitted to Clint's guilty, fearful face, marred with fresh scrapes and dirt. At least he was safe. The archer had his hands clenched around Tony's right leg. "What's 'a matter…" Then he saw the metal rod sticking out of the meat of his calf. It had driven straight through him into the plating below. There should have been pain, but there surprisingly wasn't. Maybe there was just _too_ much, from his arm and his head and everywhere else, that this couldn't compete. Maybe. "Oh."

"Hold him, Clint!"

Tony was lost. "Huh? What're you doing?"

Steve took a deep breath. "Ready? One. Two. Three!" And he grabbed that rod and yanked it free.

_Now_ there was pain. Tony screamed until his breath failed him. He hardly noticed as Steve nearly gagged and tossed the gore-covered rod away. He hardly noticed as Clint pressed his hands to the gushing hole in his body, as Steve joined him and they both desperately tried to stop the bleeding. He hardly noticed the goddamn sun blasting them with precious light, finally within reach. He hardly noticed anything more. He drifted away, lolling helplessly on the waves that battered the shores of awareness. He was going down. He was going to stay down this time. As long as he could. "Gonna sleep now, guys," he slurred. He licked his lips and tasted blood and sweat and rust. Gross. "Been fun. Really. Had a blast." He smiled. "Get it?"

He didn't know if they got his joke, didn't wait to hear what they thought. Instead he gave up the fight, and he didn't give a damn when Steve tried to call him back.

* * *

" – best we can do – "

" – goddamn it. He's not gonna make it."

" – Stark's tough… Pull through…"

" – crazy… You can't do it, Steve. It's much too – "

" – have to try… He's bleeding so much – "

" – fall. This is insane. We need you."

"How much longer can we possibly last in this place? This is our best shot. I have to take it."

The scraps and bits of conversation drifted through the haze of unconsciousness for quite some time before Tony thought to put them together into something more meaningful. The clouds cleared from his head a little as he opened his eyes. He blinked away the mist. The sun was still there. He hadn't dreamt it.

They'd gotten the launch doors open.

He groaned around some attempt at a word, the garbled mess sounding hoarse and completely alien to his ears. The sound of cloth shifting and metal creaking got louder and closer, and then he felt someone grab his hand from atop his chest. "Tony? Are you awake?"

He was. More or less. Maybe just less.

"Stark?"

He didn't want to wake up again. He knew things were bad, worse, even, than the last time he'd regained consciousness in this nightmare. He knew there was going be even more pain, more horror, more desperation. He knew, despite the hope they'd found, that they weren't out yet. If Steve and Clint's anguished conversation was any indication, they might not get out.

He might not.

But at least he wasn't alone.

He mustered up enough composure to answer. "The doors are open," he slurred as he closed his eyes against the sun. When he looked again, it was at Steve, who sat at his side. He took a moment to appraise the younger man, to notice how worn with worry and fatigue Steve was. Aside from a few new nicks and cuts, he seemed alright. So did Clint, who sat on Tony's other side. Considering the mess of debris around them from the partially collapsed first level, it was probably a miracle that only he had been hurt. And "miracle" felt like way too goddamn strong a word.

The first level had come down in a colossal mess. The far end where the stairs had been was still attached to the silo wall, but just barely. Everywhere else it had collapsed, some of it slipping down the hole and dangling. It was a mangled maze of sharp, twisted metal, a hellish barricade trapping them in a small section that had either been fortunately spared or subsequently cleared of debris. "Not sure this is better, frankly."

The other two were silent. Tony tried to shift the throbbing hell of his body only to find that he really couldn't do much. His leg was beyond painful, swollen and pulsing and torturing him. His arm was a constant, dull throb. Patches of agony and numbness were interchanging, floating randomly around his flesh and bones and teasing his senses. He lifted his head and looked down at his leg, remembering briefly the nightmare and the impaling rod that Steve had pulled out. Now that was gone, and the other Avengers fashioned some sort of tourniquet and bandage to try and dress the serious wound. Clint's shirt had been sacrificed, and the archer was curled into himself and shivering despite the warm sun. Tony could see glistening red underneath the black cloth around his leg, a huge stain that was turning his jeans lavender. He'd lost a lot of blood. No wonder he was so woozy.

He laid his head back down tiredly, unable to cope with the pain and dizziness any longer. "Well, this is freaking awesome. What, things weren't bad enough?"

"I think the bone might have been damaged," Steve said quietly.

"Brilliant. Gimpy twice over. I'm screwed." Tony blinked away tears of agony as utter misery again pressed upon him. "Last time I take a hit for you, feathers." That sounded much worse than he intended, and he immediately regretted the hasty, harsh words as Clint flinched. More things, raw and unfiltered things, spilled from his mouth. They were as hot and relentless as the tears flooding his eyes that he vainly tried to hide with his good arm. "I screwed up. I really screwed up."

"It's not your fault," Steve soothed.

"Barton, I didn't mean what I said back there. I'm sorry. So goddamn sorry. Really, I am."

"So am I," Clint whispered.

Steve stopped it before it degraded further. "It's no one's fault. Whatever else happened, we got the doors open," he said firmly, darting his determined gaze to Clint. The blind man didn't notice of course, didn't answer, and the hazy ghost of the argument Tony' had heard roamed across his thoughts. The billionaire looked up. The sun was high overhead, huge and bright. The two massive slabs of the launch doors stood vertically, wide open and taunting them. So close. Only another forty feet. Maybe forty-five…

"You can climb it, Cap," Tony softly announced. "Go. Get out of here."

Steve looked a little surprised by the _completely_ lucid and confident statement. He looked like he didn't know what to say, like he wanted to argue but knew it was irrational. Especially since this was the _same _thing he had been championing to Clint earlier. He needed to go. There was no way Tony or Clint could accompany him. It was utterly impossible. Leaving them behind was necessary, no matter how much it hurt. Leaving them behind was, strangely and sadly enough, the only way to save them. So he didn't argue, didn't dispute. Tony was right.

Clint sagged, pulling his legs out from under him to sit. His face was flushed with fever and broken in pain and despair. There was no semblance of the archer's normally strong, stoic self. There was only fear and hurt and defeat. He knew Tony was right, too, and he was obviously terrified.

The silence that followed was laden with unmitigated anguish. This had been inevitable, the only end that could have come from their struggle. Tony's arm was destroyed. Clint couldn't see. So that meant Steve, despite his injuries, was the only one with any chance of escape. They'd wielded the idea of Rogers leaving them against each other and against themselves, and now it was the only thing left. The absolute.

Steve eventually released a long breath and closed his eyes. He was splattered with blood and dirt and trembling and white. He looked very young and very burdened by an unwanted responsibility. And it wasn't unwanted because Steve wouldn't lay down his life for them. It was unwanted because it meant doing the very thing he'd sworn he wouldn't do. _Let them go._ "Once I get up there, I'll find a way to get you guys up. Something to throw down. Maybe there's a rope or – "

"No," Tony said. The strength in his unwavering tone surprised even him. "No."

Steve's face fell when he was forced to realize the truth. There was no way he could get Tony and Clint out. Not by himself. He sighed again. "Then I'll get help. I'll find some help. I won't leave you. I swear to God." There was not an ounce of doubt in his voice. Not a bit of weakness. This was a solemn vow, the sort that men like Steve Rogers _never_ broke. Steve's blue eyes were filled with loyalty, with friendship. With faith. "I'll come back for you."

"Counting on it," Tony answered, trying to hide the way his voice broke with the words. Trying not to admit to the fear mounting in his heart. "I'm not planning on dying here. How about you, Clint?"

Clint seemed incapable of managing speech, let alone answering that question. He had his head down and his eyes closed and his arms folded across his knees. Like he was hiding. He shuddered for a moment more, battered by what Tony suspected was pain, delirium, and fear. He gathered his composure, or whatever could possibly remain of it. "We'll be okay, Steve," he said.

"You can take care of me. Right? We made up. Totally BFFs again," Tony said without the tiniest bit of his customary sarcasm or mirth. It was laughable, a blind man taking care of one who, by all accounts, was crippled.

It was all they had at this point. And if they didn't convince Steve they could make it, he would never leave them, no matter what he had said earlier about this being their only chance. Clint sniffed, realized this unspoken fact even though he couldn't see Tony's expression. "Don't worry about us." He tried to grin. "We can last a little longer in this hellhole."

Clint tried to lie but Steve wasn't at all assuaged by the empty assurance. Tony watched him hesitate and worry. Then he pushed himself to his feet and headed slowly to the side of the silo behind him, the only side he could now reach. As he picked through the wreckage to find a path, Tony let his eyes slip shut in relief, in this small scrap of a victory. Steve could go. Perhaps Steve would bring back aid before they died.

But at the very least, Steve would _survive_.

Rogers paused at the cement wall. The metal rails that he had used below as a ladder of sorts extended all the way to the top of the silo. Tony appraised them for a moment, noting in dismay that, like everything else up here, they were significantly more corroded. Steve grabbed the rail and pulled on it experimentally. It seemed sturdy. He started climbing.

Even though Tony hadn't thought he could watch, he did. He never looked away, hardly blinked. Hardly breathed. He watched every move Steve made, every passage of his hands as he lifted himself higher and higher, every step of his feet as he anchored himself against the rail. His heart was wildly, madly thudding in his chest; it was one of those moments where he idly wondered if the arc reactor would survive the violent hammering against it. Each foot upward took a seeming eternity to complete. But, in no time at all, Steve was twenty feet from the remains of the first level and steadily rising.

Clint moved closer. Tony didn't know if the other man was simply seeking comfort, but he subconsciously and automatically provided it, grasping Clint's reaching arm and gingerly pulling himself up. Even after he'd gotten himself sitting, he didn't let go. "How far?" Clint asked softly.

"Halfway," Tony answered, equally quietly.

"Is he gonna make it?"

Tony didn't know. "I think so." He gave a lopsided smile. "He's Captain America."

A few more silent minutes dragged by as Steve worked. Tony could see him tiring, could see the blood dripping from his lacerated leg, could see his chest heaving for air that wasn't coming easily enough. The rail shuddered and for a moment Tony feared the worst. But it didn't come free, and Steve didn't let go. _Come on, Cap,_ he thought desperately. _You can do it. You can make it._ As if hearing Tony's silent cheering, Steve regained his strength and surged upward.

Finally, he reached the top. Forty feet above them, he clung to the rail. He was at the very apex of the silo.

There was, of course, the matter of how he was actually going to get out. In the center of the silo's roof lay the open launch doors. Reaching them (and the small space between them and the ceiling that Steve could probably use to swing himself to the surface) would require a similar jump to the one he'd made before back down in the bottom. Tony could hardly contain his mounting hope as the sun blared over them. Steve could make it. Steve would make it. He had before, and he would again.

Steve turned around just as he had the last time, grasping the rail behind him as he prepared to make the jump. There were no sarcastic or fearful comments this time, no teasing, and the silence was tense and unbreakable. Tony couldn't do anything other than watch as Steve prepared. Watch and pray and have faith that this would be it.

Steve jumped.

He didn't make it.

Maybe he'd misjudged the distance. Maybe he was that much weaker from exertion and blood loss. Maybe the fact that he'd made it before had been the fluke, a statistical anomaly, an unlikely event made overly plausible by the fact that it happened.

It didn't matter why.

Steve's reaching hands missed their target by a good six inches, and his face fractured in horror when he realized what had happened.

_No,_ Tony thought in utter panic. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening!

_No, no, no! "Steve!"_

But there was absolutely, miserably, pathetically _nothing_ they could do as Steve fell from the top and struck the wreckage of the first level with a bone-crunching thud.


	8. Chapter 8

**DISCLAIMER:** _The Avengers_ is the property of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.

**RATING:** T (for language, violence)

**THE LAST LEVEL**

**8**

"Oh, God," Tony whispered plaintively. He stared at where Steve had fallen, where his body had landed after its hapless forty-foot plummet, but he couldn't get a good view of the other man through the twisted, gnarled mess of metal around them. His panic was mounting, higher and higher and _higher_, with each passing horrific second. "Oh, God. Oh, please God!"

"What? What?" Clint gasped from beside him, clutching his good arm tight enough to hurt. "Did he fall? Tony, did he fall?"

Tony didn't – couldn't – answer right away, though Clint's question was loaded with desperation and anger and fear. He could only try to look, twisting his head and craning his neck and struggling in a frenzy to find some way to see Steve. Rogers had hit the first level towards the center of the room – _God, he couldn't have fallen all the way…_ Tony couldn't bear to even consider that. Occasional gaps in the metal debris around them afforded him glimpses of where he thought Steve was. He tried to move closer, tried to inch his goddamn broken body closer so he could see something, but it was too painful and useless. Just as he was about to let loose a scream of utter despair and frustration, he caught sight of Steve's boots, somehow distinct in the mess of rusty debris. They jerked a few times and then were still.

"Stark! Damn it, would you talk to me?" Clint shouted from beside him.

"Steve! Steve! _Rogers!_" Tony yelled as loudly as he could. He held his breath as he waited for a response, glancing at Barton beside him who was staring uselessly at his boots. He wasn't breathing, either. Waiting. Praying. "Steve, answer me! Are you okay? Steve!" Again nothing. Only the echo of Tony's rough, terrified calls through the silo. Steve was silent. Injured. _Dead_. "Oh, shit," Tony finally whispered, his eyes burning with unshed tears. _Don't let him be dead. Don't let him be dead. Please, please, don't let him be dead…_

The silo was quiet. It creaked and moaned and whimpered. Tony and Clint didn't move. Didn't speak. Hardly thought. Hardly breathed. Trapped in their shock and fear and misery. But this moment, like so many others in this hellish trap, slipped away. It had to.

"What do we do?" Clint finally asked. In the vacuous silence, his tremulous question was louder than thunder. Tony didn't answer. The harsh voice of pessimism, of horror and anger, filled his head with filth. _What do we do? We suffer and die, just like we were told to. We can follow the rules. Steve's dead, and so are we. We all die. That's how it ends._ "Can you see him? Where did he fall?" Clint pulled him closer, as if to shake some sense into him. Maybe that was what he needed. "Help me! Can you see him?"

Thankfully Tony's mouth moved because his brain had checked out. "Just his feet."

Clint's face managed some semblance of its normal control, but still his dismay was all too obvious. "Can we get to him?" Tony wanted to laugh. He nearly did, but the insane, angry chortle got lodged in his throat and he managed to swallow to it down. Even though Clint couldn't see how near he was to completely losing it, he was incredibly perceptive. Softly he explained, "I have legs. You have eyes. We can do it together. Now can we get to him?"

That wasn't an easy question to answer. Tony eyed the wreckage of the first level in front of them, the mangled maze of broken and twisted metal. There were holes and gaps and perhaps there could be a path, but navigating through that dangerous barricade would be difficult in the best of situations. And they only had one semi-working body between them. "There's a lot of wreckage between him and us. A freaking wall of it. Maybe twenty feet wide. You'll have to go through that."

Suddenly Clint seemed thoroughly unsure, his face whitening even further. Frankly, Tony didn't blame him. Crawling and climbing through that mess was dangerous to say the least. Who knew what sort of sharp hazards and perilous traps could be lurking in that shadowy obstacle. And if Clint got stuck… He really couldn't think about that.

But he couldn't think about Steve dying, either.

Clint seemed to come to the same conclusion. He took a deep breath, just one, because there was no more time to hesitate. "Tell me," Clint ordered, though the tone in his voice suggested at any moment he might change his mind.

Tony swallowed his pounding heart back into this chest. He tried to push himself up more to see better through the wreckage. At least with the sun blaring overhead, the shadows weren't quite so thick and encompassing. "Okay," Tony breathed, gathering the sad and meager remains of his composure. "Okay, we can do this." Clint climbed shakily to his feet. "Turn around," Tony ordered. "Now go about four feet. You'll hit the edge of it." Clint did so, his hands out before him as he shuffled as quickly as he could. His palms hit the side of a large section of floor grating. "Okay, now you gotta duck. Or get down on your hands and knees. Go under." Clint hesitated, and then dropped down as Tony instructed. He crawled under the floor grating. Tony watched as he made slow progress inside the debris. "There's a bar in front of you. Maybe six inches away. You probably need to go over it." Tony raised himself further to get a better vantage, despite the pain that stole his breath and nearly stole his consciousness. He glanced back and forth between Steve's unmoving legs and Clint. "Hurry."

"Trying," came the strained response. Then there was a brief cry and a curse and he saw Clint sag.

"You okay?" Tony immediately demanded.

"Cut my hand."

That wouldn't be the last, Tony knew. And they couldn't stop. "Keep going," Tony implored forcefully, darting his eyes again to Steve and despising each second slipping by. Despising being goddamn _stuck_ here and not knowing if Steve was… _Please, don't let him be dead…_ "Watch your head!"

Clint ducked just in time to avoid smashing his head into a low hanging, bent metal rail. He lay on the ground a moment before gathering his wits and slithering forward on his belly. Tony watched, furious at himself and this whole awful situation, impatiently gnashing his cheek with his teeth. "I can't see much. Just feel ahead."

Clint inched forward, sweeping his hands before him as much as he could. Tony's vantage was incredibly poor as the other man went deeper into the wreckage. The archer climbed onto something, Tony couldn't see what, and then everything groaned and shifted slightly and for a moment Tony thought this was it. This was the moment where the unstable debris would collapse further and Clint would be lost.

They both held very still and waited. The precariously balanced mess above Clint never came down. Tony swallowed through a dry throat. "Come on. Keep going." Clint was frozen, remaining pressed firmly to the section of floor grating beside him. Tony could barely see him. "Come on!" he shouted, doing nothing to mask his emotions. That jolted Clint from his stupor, and he warily went onward. A few more seconds passed, and he could crawl and creep no further. "You gotta go up now. Up and over a piece of the floor." Clint tentatively rose onto his haunches, feeling above his head experimentally. Once he'd explored enough to convince himself it was safe, he stood taller, wavering dizzily and grabbing onto the corridor of wreckage around him for support. Tony's heart was straining painfully, and a cold sweat doused him. "I'm not going to be able to see you after you go over."

Clint stopped at that. Tony could see he was utterly terrified. He had his bloody hands on the floor section, curled around the rusted grating. There were a ton of other cuts covering him, too. New slices and slashes and wounds that wept crimson. "What's on the other side?" he asked softly.

"Steve." He didn't know beyond that. And that seemed to be enough for Clint, even though the other man surely realized that there could be more perils, pitfalls and dangers that he couldn't see and thus couldn't avoid. His eyes were useless. His eyes couldn't help him anymore. But he climbed the rest of the way. And he slid down the other side.

Now Tony was completely helpless. He turned his eyes from the section of flooring where Clint had been to the small gap where he could see Steve's boots. There were still there, unmoving. "Barton, are you okay?" he asked loudly after a few seconds (eternity) of silence, unable to wait any longer. "Clint?"

"Yeah." The response was shaky but relieved. "I'm okay."

Tony nearly asked if the other could see Steve before he stopped himself. Instead he yelled, "He's towards the gap in the floor! Watch it!"

"Freaking wonderful," Clint answered. His voice shook.

Tony bit his lip, tasting blood (whether from his tortured cheeks or from some sort of internal injury, he couldn't say). He heard rustling, metal creaking as weight was shifted and moved, shallow breathing. He glanced through adjacent holes in the wreckage, searching for any sign of movement to clue him in to where Clint was. After a few long, aggravating moments, he spotted the familiar black of Clint's pants. "I see you!" he announced in relief.

"Which way?" Clint shouted back.

"To your right. No, turn around. Your other right." A breath later, Clint appeared in the next hole. "Keep going." And the next. Tony could hardly breathe for his anticipation and fear because if Steve was dead… _God._ If Steve was dying, his only hope was a blind man… "Keep going!"

Clint dropped suddenly to his hands and knees. He was slowly crawling forward, obviously fearful of tripping or stepping on Steve or inadvertently wandering into the hole in the center of the floor. Tony twisted and tried to look, uncaring about how much it hurt. He thought Clint was almost there. He had to be. "You got it," he called. "Just a little farther!"

Finally there was a gasp. "I found him!"

_Thank God!_ "Is he breathing? Is he?" Tony could hardly stand to wait for the response, fearing the worst and not finding the strength to hope for the best. There was no answer for an infinite period of worry. He couldn't keep his body from shaking or his patience intact. "Is he, Clint?"

"Yes!" Tony closed his eyes, and the first of his tears finally spilled down his cheeks. Steve wasn't dead. _Steve wasn't dead._ The immense relief brought on by that fact was enough to render his faculties utterly useless for a bit. Then he heard Clint swear again. "His heart's racing." Tony opened eyes he'd squeezed shut and stared through his only viewpoint, as poor as it was. He imagined Clint leaning over Steve's body, fumbling for his wrist or his neck. "Steve, wake up. Wake up!"

He saw Steve's legs and feet jerk a little. "Don't! Don't move him! He could have a back or neck injury!"

"That's not me," Clint answered roughly and in alarm. "Tony, he's coming around!"

Steve came around, alright. Tony watched in stupefaction as Captain America lurched upward and rolled to his side, the side thankfully away from the damn hole, and promptly vomited a horrendous and unhealthy amount of blood. He averted his eyes, horrified. His empty stomach churned and roiled until he thought he would be sick, too. He looked back a moment later to see Steve collapsed on the floor, eyes half-lidded and glassy, flushed. Clint had a hand on his back, his back that was covered in fresh blood. The scene was frighteningly familiar, like goddamn déjà vu from hell. They moved out of Tony's line of sight momentarily, and the inventor struggled to look through another hole.

"Steve, just sit still. Sit still!" There was a mumbled response, totally incomprehensible, to Clint's plea. "You need to rest. You took a hell of a spill." _And that's a hell of an understatement._ Tony's terrified mind could only picture the scene, Clint supporting Steve as Steve struggled away. _If he's moving, he has to be okay. Right? If he's moving, he has to be okay._ "Steve, calm down. You have to stop! We're too close to the edge!" Clint's tone was getting more and more strained and tinged with panic. "Tony!"

There wasn't much he could do. "Rogers, listen to Barton. Take it easy." From his vantage he couldn't see much anymore, but Clint's fumbling words and frantic breaths were enough to relay the general happenings. The sound of choking filled the silo, rough and harsh and painful. It was Steve, in all likelihood hacking up more blood. Tony shook his head, worried about where they were, about how close they were to the hole. One wrong step… "Steve, come on. Lay down! You're in no shape to – "

"Tony, what's he doing?" Clint asked. "Tony?"

It took Tony a minute to answer, first because he couldn't quite see Steve clearly through the mess of wreckage, and then because he couldn't goddamn _believe his eyes._ This was _much_ worse than blindly stepping through the hole. "No, Steve. Damn it! Stop!"

"… 'm fine," came Steve's slurred response as he limped drunkenly to the wall. Once he reached the cement side of the silo, near another one of those rusted rails, Tony could see him again. He paused, leaning against the wall as though exhausted and barely capable of maintaining his upright posture. That probably was the case. He was bleeding from _somewhere_; Tony couldn't see where the source was for the red spilling down Steve's legs and smearing on the wall and floor. Internal. External. Probably both. Steve had struck the first level with enough force to break bones and pulverize internal organs and cause shock and death. There was no telling how badly hurt he was. Not from here.

The super soldier wiped his mouth as he breathed shallowly, wearily and limply leaning against the wall. He looked up, squinting like his eyes wouldn't focus. Sunlight washed over him, and he was pale and shivering and wavering on unsteady feet. "Gotta go up. Gotta get out… right?"

"No," Clint said, helplessly shaking his head and spinning uselessly in the spot in which he'd been left. Tony found the archer's frustration to be palpable even though there was a wall of debris separating them. "You can't! Listen to us. You're messed up bad, not thinking straight. You need to stop. You need to rest before you hurt yourself worse."

"Clint, he's climbing the wall," Tony announced, praying the archer could move fast enough to stop Rogers before he engaged in this delirious, monumentally stupid act of self-sacrifice. "He's climbing the goddamn wall! To your left!"

Clint cursed viciously and stumbled in that general direction, but he wasn't fast enough. Steve had already grasped the rail and hauled himself up with a loud, deep groan. By the time Clint reached where he had been, he was already a half a dozen feet off the ground and rising. Tony watched, flabbergasted at what he was seeing. At what Steve was doing. At how he could even be doing it. "For God's sake, get down!" he shouted, his voice cracking with unrestrained emotion. "I know you'll all into this 'taking a hit for the team' shit, but this is a little extreme, even for you. You're going to kill yourself! Get down here, you crazy bastard! _Get down!_"

But Steve didn't stop, and he didn't come down. His bloodless lips shifted about a few breathy words that neither Clint nor Tony could hear, and he kept climbing. The cords of muscles in his back and arms and thighs stretched and knotted and twisted unnaturally as he worked, as he asked so much of his body that was riddled with injuries. As he went higher and higher into the sun, Tony noticed the deep purple splotches covering his skin underneath the blood, contusions and bruises and marks of damage inside. Tony thought he saw his spine shifting weirdly, like a vertebra or two weren't quite in place. _Oh, God,_ he thought helplessly, horrified at Steve's stupidity. Had all sense fled him? He'd never considered Steve to be brilliant, but the man was a sound thinker, a simple thinker, who could work through complex scenarios to arrive at the perfect tactical strategy. But somehow this clear and immutable fact had utterly eluded him: if he tried this again, he was going to die.

Tony's upturned eyes burned with perspiration and tears. A flood of desperation spilled from his mouth. "Steve, God damn it! Stop! Stop it! Come down! Please, don't do this!" Steve's hand slipped from the rail, and Tony's heart agonizingly leapt in his chest as he watched Rogers dangle by one blood-slicked arm for a moment. But he got himself back up by some sort of miracle. Clint shook his head, realizing now the full the extent of what was happening and coming to the sad conclusion that it was inevitable. There was nothing they could do. It was one thing to have Steve make this climb when there'd been a chance of success, when they hadn't been so doomed and things hadn't seemed so futile. But this was madness. Silently Clint leaned against the silo wall, bleeding and crushed.

Tony wasn't so willing to succumb to defeat. He never knew a losing battle when he saw one, never admitted it was over. "You'll die! You'll fall and kill yourself for sure this time! Can you get that through your thick skull, Rogers? You'll die if you try that jump!" Steve ignored him. He was nearly to the top again. Tony's panic was sharp and electrifying. He didn't think he could stand to watch this again, to watch Steve plummet, this time to his almost certain death, when there was nothing he could do to stop it. For a moment he considered playing their sad situation against Steve again. Clint's fever and wounds and head injury. His own broken arm and bleeding leg were damning. Steve would leave them, and they both could (very likely would) die. But he couldn't force himself to do that. It was cruel, too cruel, both to Steve and to them. And Steve seemed beyond the reach of any sort of logic. "Damn it, Steve! _Listen to me!_"

But Steve didn't listen. He was too high up and too far gone. Too determined.

He was goddamn Captain America. And Captain America never gave up.

"Oh, God," Tony whispered. He didn't really believe in praying, hadn't even tried when Steve had told him to when he'd made this jump below. Tony didn't hold to any sort of higher power for salvation. He trusted in his own wiles and strength and intelligence, and he always had. But he started to pray again, because he couldn't do anything one way or another to influence how this would turn out, and that meant this was his only and last resort. It was pretty pathetic that this was all he could manage. He'd found himself doing it more and more since Afghanistan, since Iron Man, since the Chitauri and the Avengers and the slew of life-threatening, traumatic situations he'd been in, being trapped in this pit not the least of them. He gave in. _Don't let him fall. Don't let him fall. Don't make him fall!_

Steve got to the top. Now Tony was wishing without words, hoping blindly with all of his heart. He forced himself to watch as Steve clumsily turned himself around, nearly slipping too many times to count, and prepared to jump.

What was it he'd thought before? _A goddamn leap of faith._

Steve bent his knees. He held to the rail behind him. His eyes weren't even open, like they weren't necessary. Tony couldn't close his. Couldn't even blink. Couldn't blink or move or breathe or think. Could only hope. Just hope. Just whisper. _"Please…"_

Steve silently leapt. He sailed through the air. He _flew_. One second passed. Two.

Then his hands landed _firmly_ where they should have, where they needed to, and his strong fingers curled around the edge of the floor, and he _held on_.

Tony shouted and cheered loudly in exuberance, not quite believing it could be true, that Steve had made the jump. That he was hanging up there, despite the distance and his injuries and the force pulling him down and everything that had happened. Nothing could pry his eyes away now as Steve hung limply for an eternity before he reinforced his grip and started to swing horizontally along the distance of the door. He slid his hands, using his body like a pendulum to propel himself across. Not for the first time, Tony thanked their lucky stars that Steve was such an expert at acrobatics. His hands never failed him, and he moved along the distance gracefully. Blood dripped down from above like rain.

And when he got to the end, he turned the corner, lifting himself the extra inches between the little ledge he'd used to move across and the roof of the silo. He hung tiredly for a moment, and Tony wondered after so many seconds of silence if he'd fall now, so close to the end. However, Steve gathered strength from who knew where, from _faith_, gave a cry of absolute anguish, and pulled his body up and over and onto the roof of the silo.

Outside.

Steve was out. He'd escaped.

_Steve was free._

A huge smile broke out on Tony's filthy, bruised face. Tears rolled from his eyes as he laughed. "I can't believe it. Son of a bitch… I can't believe it!" Maybe this praying stuff wasn't so useless, after all.

Clint looked up, hearing Tony, and chanced a hopeful smile himself. "Did he make it?" he called loudly from the other side of the wreckage. His voice was laden with frantic hope. "Is he out?"

"Yeah," Tony gasped, fighting not to sob openly in relief. He gave into that, too, because he was so tired and beaten and the emotions were just too strong. "Yeah, he made it! He's out!"

He caught a glimpse of Clint sagging and burying his head in his arms. His shoulders were shaking. After a beat he lifted his tear-stained face to the sky and whispered something that Tony couldn't hear. A prayer, maybe, in gratitude. Clint didn't seem to be the type, but desperation brought one to the barest and simplest of responses. Tony typically wasn't one for shallow displays of silly emotion, but he fervently wished Clint were with him so he could hug him.

But Clint wasn't with him. Clint was on the other side of this nearly impassable wall of wreckage. They might as well be miles apart.

He looked up to the open launch doors. Steve was nowhere to be found. A shiver of terror wracked Tony's body. Maybe he'd imagined it. Maybe Steve had never made it at all and was lying on the first level. He had no one to confirm what he'd seen. Maybe the pain and delirium and dehydration had made him the victim of some sort of massive hallucination. Maybe none of it was real. Maybe Steve was dead.

Or maybe Tony had been the one who'd died back when the first level had come down on them.

But Steve appeared overhead as he leaned over the roof of the silo. He might have said something because his lips looked like they moved. If he did, it was too faint to be heard clearly. Still, the expression on his face was surprisingly lucid given the enormity of damage he'd done to himself. And it spoke volumes. _Be strong. Don't give up. I'll bring back help._

_ I'll get you out._

Tony grunted ruefully. _Yeah, right._ Knowing their luck, they were probably in the middle of nowhere. And Steve was badly injured. Tony knew it, even if Steve had _somehow_ gotten himself up there. Though Captain America had more strength, bravery, and willpower than anyone Tony knew, it wasn't as limitless as everyone believed. How long until Steve's body failed him? How long until he collapsed, bleeding out almost as much as he was bleeding in? And if Steve fell, the modicum of hope afforded to Tony and Clint would wink out, like a candle that had burned through the very last of its wax.

Steve seemed to read his bitter and frightened thoughts because he lingered, hesitant and fearful for their sake. Tony knew that he knew he could be condemning them to death. Still, he knew as well that there was no other way to save them. Tony held his gaze, held this connection, even as far apart as they were now. As separated as he was from Clint. Alone, for all intents and purposes. _Alone._

Tony cocked his head a little, trying to be strong, offering up a small nod and what he hoped was a grin. He didn't know if Steve understood that he was trying to tell him to go, that it was okay, that it would end one way or another. He didn't know if Steve understood at all. But Steve left them all the same.

Clint was quiet. Tony was quiet. The silo groaned and whined before settling into a deep and unyielding silence. Again it was as silent as a tomb.

_Iron Man dying in an iron hell._

Even with Steve free, he sorrowfully wondered if there was really _any_ chance of stopping that now.


	9. Chapter 9

**DISCLAIMER:** _The Avengers_ is the property of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.

**RATING:** T (for language, violence)

**THE LAST LEVEL**

**9**

Now would be a good time for the other Avengers to rescue them.

Tony had never wanted so badly to see Banner's banal face or hear Thor's booming voice or feel Black Widow's icy presence. They'd become something of an odd, dysfunctional family since Loki's invasion, since that fateful fight to save New York that had bonded them once and for all as a team. Recently Tony'd felt something he hadn't felt in a long time, maybe ever. Comfort in companionship. Confidence in other people. Loyalty and trust and friendship. And unwavering, unyielding faith that he was not alone.

No, he was alone. And he was going to die alone.

And that terrified him.

It had been this niggling fear since he'd awoken to Steve's stricken face in this hell. That he'd be left behind to suffer and wither and fade away in solitude, trapped and lost. He'd managed to put it to the back of his mind for the last harrowing hours, finding comfort in Steve and Clint and their constancy and dependency. But Steve had left him, and Clint was trapped on the other side of the wreckage, unwilling or perhaps unable to make the climb back. That quiet dread he'd managed to stifle in the beginning had been awoken by that hellish nightmare during the collapse of the first level, and now it was undeniably on the verge of being realized. He'd never anticipated how deeply afraid he was of dying like this. He'd been in plenty perilous situations before, where his life had literally hung in the balance. He'd faced his own demise far more than most other people. But he'd never had so much bloody _time_ to think about it. In the past, the moments where he'd stood on the precipice had been brief and violent and chaotic, and the basest need to _survive_ had been the only thing he'd known. Now he was literally waiting to die, and every moment was an eternity of agony and dread.

He lay propped against the wreckage as he had when he'd watched Steve escape, too hurt and drained to even attempt to move. Consciousness was fleeting, and coherent thought was even more so. That was the only strange bright spot of this situation. As he lay there, feeling the blood slowly draining from his body through the egregious hole in his leg, it was difficult to spend much more than a few seconds thinking about any one thing, and that spared him from too acutely accepting how imminent his death was. He'd wonder if Steve could have perhaps made it, let the warm rush of hope briefly fill his cold, shivering form, and then he'd inevitably realize that the likelihood of Steve saving them, let alone himself, was painfully low. The super soldier had suffered fairly devastating injuries; Tony _still_ couldn't believe the other man had even made that climb to get out of the silo. They could be hundreds of miles from aid or a few short feet. There was no way to be certain, but the further they were from civilization (and it had to be civilization friendly enough to want to help), the less likely it was that a rescue would arrive in time. Or that it would arrive at all. He pictured Steve out there, running, forcing himself to keep going even though death was doing all it could to drag him down, never to get up again. He pictured that and wanted to cry, and when the despair beat down hope, he veritably lost himself in his own delirium. And when he came out of it, he'd forgotten enough of his internal struggles and strife to be dumb enough to hope again.

Maybe it wasn't much of a bright spot, when he really thought about it. More like some sort of circle of mental hell. How many circles had Clint said there were again? Nine? This was the ninth, then. Or the first. The archer was right. Everything was upside down in this place. They went up, only to be brought down. They climbed higher only to fall harder. The first level was the last. Limbo. The only truth was there was no way out. Permanence. _You suffer and you die._

_You suffer and die alone._

"Tony."

Tony opened gummy eyes that had fallen shut. For a blissful moment, his battered brain just utterly failed to produce a meaningful explanation of his surroundings. But the sad truth was unavoidable, just as it was every time he awoke as he drifted to and from consciousness. "Tony?"

It was Clint. Tony lethargically moved his gaze to the wall of rubble that separated him from the other man. He couldn't see anything, but he imagined Clint was somewhere along the wall of the silo where he'd last seen him… hours ago? Minutes ago? Days ago? He didn't know. It wasn't night, but the sun was gone and everything was doused in a gray haze.

Clint's voice was rough, tortured by dehydration and misuse. "Tony? Can you answer me?"

Answering was harder than it should have been, both for lack of strength and lack of effort. "Yeah," he murmured. He belatedly realized that Clint probably couldn't hear that weak croak that passed for his voice, and he tried again, louder. "Yeah, I'm here."

Silence followed. Maybe Clint was having the same problems with concentration as he was. It seemed probable, given the archer's rising fever and his own injuries. Tony found himself drifting again when Clint finally responded. "Do you think he made it?"

The obvious question. The one they had both been contemplating fairly exclusively since Steve had left. And there were no answers to be had. No way to know. It was too painful to hope but more miserable to not. Tony was tired. "Dunno." He closed his eyes. Everything hurt so badly that his entire form had become a single throbbing source of anguish. His shattered arm and hand. His battered body. His impaled leg. He was starting to wonder how much longer it would take before he actually _wanted_ to die. "If anyone could've, it'd be him."

_Captain America. The Star-Spangled Man with the Plan._ Steve always had a plan.

Clint didn't respond right away, and that heavy, ominous silence returned. Even though neither of them had moved in quite some time, the silo kept moaning and whimpering, as though it physically ached from the damage done to its old and corroded body. "I hope the others got Zemo," Clint commented. "He deserves to have Banner pummel the shit out of him for this."

The image of an enraged Hulk literally crushing Zemo into the ground flashed through Tony's addled thoughts, and it was immeasurably pleasurable. What a smug, vindictive asshole. Inexplicably, though there was no way he could know anything of what might have happened to the good Baron or the rest of the team, Tony bitterly suspected Zemo had found a way to elude capture. The guy seemed like the sort with an escape route planned. The worst villains always had a way out. "Well, if it's any consolation, half his face was melted off. Got a little splashed with his own super glue."

Clint was quiet. Then he wearily said with a sigh, "No, not much consolation."

It wasn't, really. The hideous visage that had loomed over him and doomed him flashed through Tony's head, bringing fresh torment. Tony closed his eyes against the awful image, wishing he could blot out that harsh voice. _Iron Man dying in an iron hell. No way out. No way up. No hope._ "Bastard was good with a sword, though," Clint mused distantly. "I have to admit that I didn't see that one coming."

Tony thought back to the disastrous fight that had landed them in this mess. "Yeah, what was that?" He recalled the blades slicing through the air, nearly faster than he could trace even with Iron Man's enhanced visual sensors. Clint had veritably danced, nimble feet stepping, lithe body turning with eerie precision, his sword a flash of silver as he'd sparred with Zemo. "Somehow I doubt swordsmanship is on the standard SHIELD training agenda. If it is, I want in. That was total badassery. And I rarely admit that anyone could possibly be more badass than me. Where the hell did you learn to do that?"

"You said you read my file."

Tony tried to shrug with his one good shoulder. It was more like a sad twitch. And it was getting harder and harder to focus again. "Scanned is more like it."

Clint was quiet. "For a while when I was a kid, I was… part of a circus."

Tony wanted to laugh but it came out as a short breath. He hadn't expected that. "No shit."

"Yeah, well, we all have our small and inauspicious beginnings." For some reason, that comment made Tony feel ashamed, and that wasn't something he often experienced. Poor Steve Rogers falling from that tree with his father floundering to save him. There couldn't be any humbler beginnings than those of Captain America. And Clint, too. He remembered a few things from Clint's file then. Alcoholic father. Orphaned. Runaway. They were men who pulled themselves up from weakness, from nothing, from loss. He had only ever known wealth and comfort, and he'd had every resource money could buy to help him make himself into something more. He knew he was being rather hard on himself, and irrationally so, but facing death with enough time to really contemplate it had the tendency to bring out his melodramatic side. Clint was going on in his tale, delving into the very facts that had sprung to his mind, so he tried to pay attention. "Mine came in the form of my drunk, piss-poor excuse for an old man who beat his wife and then unceremoniously killed her and himself by getting hammered and then plowing his truck into a tree. My brother and I bailed out on the orphanage we were in and ended up scrounging to survive. We came across this circus and they pitied us, I guess. Gave us food and a place to sleep and let us tag along. There was this master archer and master swordsman there. They took me under their wing and taught me everything – well, most of everything – I know. How to shoot. How to fight with a blade. The swordsman was pretty damn amazing, the fastest man on his feet I'd ever seen. He saw some talent in me, so he wanted to train me, turn me into him, I suppose. Probably would've, if I hadn't discovered he was a lying crook."

Tony grunted. Yet another thing he had in common with Barton. Betrayal by a mentor. By someone they'd trusted. "What happened?"

He almost heard Clint's shrug. "I confronted him and tried to make him turn himself in. He kicked my ass and ran. I haven't heard from him or of him since." Clint gave a short breath that might have been a rueful laugh. The pain in his tone was palpable, even though he tried to mask it. "Always wondered when he'd slither his way back into my life. Guess he won't now."

That was one of so many things that would never happen now. Things they would never know. Before them both the enormity of it all dangled, unspoken but very obvious, in the silence. Tony closed his eyes against the fresh burn of tears. Regrets did nothing now. Regrets _didn't matter_. Did he feel bad about the poor choices he'd made in his life, the moments he'd wasted drunk or uncaring or being an asshole, the needless risks he had taken? The people he'd hurt? Of course. But there was no way to remedy it, no way to ameliorate it or even apologize. Not to his father for the coldness between them (even if it hadn't been his fault – at least, not exclusively). Not to Rhodey for making his life more difficult by virtue of their friendship. Not to the other Avengers for failing the team, for leaving his work with Bruce unfinished, for poking so much fun at Thor's expense, for giving Natasha a hard time for having the wherewithal to cross him when he was being an idiot and cut through his bullshit. Not to Steve for all the times he'd defied orders (no matter how right he'd been), for all the times they'd bickered, for the fact that only now he was beginning to realize what a friend he could have in the other man if he could only stop being such a jackass all the time.

And not to Pepper for telling her how much he loved her when he really, _really_ should have shown her. That one hurt more than anything else.

He couldn't say _anything_ to _anyone._

Well, not quite.

He took a deep breath, a breath that rattled in his chest, and tried his damnedest to not to break down. "I meant what I said before," he called to Clint. "I really am sorry. I really am. You're not useless. Never have been. Even without your eyes."

The quiet that followed was so thick and consuming that Tony's delirious mind questioned whether or not he'd actually spoken. The world spun, the gray haze turning around him in a languid, lulling circle. "None of this was your fault, Stark. Not us getting captured. Not us being trapped here. And not what happened in the control room. And what you said? That was just you being you. And you weren't wrong. You saved my life. Have on more than one occasion since Manhattan. And you weren't wrong." Clint's quiet, shaky words cut through the haze. "You think I don't know what a goddamn burden I've been?"

"Not all of us are blessed with super vitality and super strength and super… superness. You and I are mere mortals among monsters and gods and legends. We were screwed from the start." That was the undeniable truth of it. "Hence why dear stupid Steven _should _have listened to us when we told him to bail on our sad asses and save himself. If he'd stowed his mightier-than-thou morals for a freaking minute, he might not be bleeding to death out there."

"No. Instead he could have been bleeding to death in here," Clint answered. "Face it, Stark. He had a better chance, but nothing is for sure in our line of work."

The finality was downright crushing. Their horrific struggle to climb upward and get the launch doors open and escape utterly meant nothing. He swallowed the sob so that Clint wouldn't hear, but the tears came anyway, hot and furious. _Nothing is for sure._ Hope had really meant nothing. No matter how hard they had tried, they had never had a chance.

"But maybe he made it," Clint said. "Maybe he did. Right?" Faith from a realist. Useless hope from a pragmatist. Everything upside down.

Still, it helped Tony get a hold of himself. "Right." What was that he'd heard once or twice? Pain only had power if you surrendered to it. Despair only controlled you if you let it. "Right."

Something struck his nose, and he jerked in exaggerated surprise, like his body was wildly overcompensating for simple reactions. He looked up after his heart stopped throbbing and felt more somethings, cold and wet somethings, splatter all over his face and skin where his tattered shirt was falling away. It took his overthrown mind a moment to realize it was rain. The sky split, and those few droplets quickly became a veritable downpour.

Even the heavens were crying.

The gray clouds, so thick and melancholic, hung low and opened and drenched the silo. Tony was instantly soaked. It washed away the blood and the grime, turning the water ruddy as it ran from his body and across the metal surrounding him and then down through the grating and holes in the floor. A red waterfall of blood and rust, mixed together like he and the silo were becoming indistinguishable. _Iron Man dying in an iron hell. This is my armor now._

Right then, he couldn't _stand _to be alone. It was more painful than all of his wounds. "Clint!" he screamed. "Barton! Answer me!"

A terrified groan was the first response. It was almost too soft to hear over the rain. "What? What?"

"You gotta come back!" Tony shouted. He desperately peered through the wreckage to see Hawkeye, but he could only barely glimpse dirty black boots and legs that were shaking. The rain pounded down on them. Punishing. "Get back here! You have to come back here!" Clint didn't answer. The patter of the rain, the dull _clank clank clank_ of the droplets against the metal walls and floor, seemed to get louder and louder until it was completely consuming. The rain and the silence because Clint wasn't answering him. Deafening. "Clint, please!"

"I don't – I don't think I can. I can't."

Tony closed his eyes against his mounting hysteria. _I don't think I can. I can't. I can't. I can't be alone_. But the fear and pain in Clint's weak voice spoke volumes of how impossible it was. He could never navigate through that death trap again, not without any aid, not with night coming and the rain blasting them. Not as weak and ill as he was. If he got stuck, if he lost his way or his will… He would die there.

Panic seized Tony, sending his heart racing and his mind reeling and the pain – oh, God, _the pain_ – came on so fiercely that for what seemed to be a long while he could only suffer. The rain came down and down and he drowned.

Then there was nothing. Lucid thought fled. Everything disappeared into a fiery, fevered hell. It scoured his thoughts, scorched the very breath in his lungs, burned him. A litany of memories, jumbled and nonsensical, tore through his mind. Random thoughts. Random things he'd long forgotten. The smell of his father's office. The first girl he'd kissed. How he'd designed his first computer. Things he wanted to forget. Afghanistan and Yinsen. Stane. Those were the worst. The shrapnel cutting into his chest, into his _heart_, and a goddamn car battery keeping him alive. Things that had become a part of him. The pale blue light of the arc reactor. The Avengers. Fury and Coulson and SHIELD. Natasha and Thor and Bruce. Clint and Steve. Pepper.

All of that was stripped away. Washed away as the cold rain cascaded over him, as the warm blood left his body. There wasn't much to be said for him now. A dying husk clinging feebly to a fleeing spirit. Some vague part of his once agile mind was clinging to consciousness, to some awareness that time was passing and the rain had stopped and it had grown very dark and very chilly. That last tether to awareness was weak and waning, and though he wanted to hold tight to it, it was too difficult to do much more than struggle in futility against the encompassing numbness. He couldn't feel his body anymore. For this moment, at least (and the moment was nearly infinite as the shadow of death descended) there was no pain.

Then somebody moved him, and the pain came back hard and quick.

Tony gasped. "It's just me," came a raw, whispered voice in his ear, and he immediately stilled. There wasn't much he could do to struggle anyway, his movements small and jerky and weaker than weak. He recognized the voice, but his brain couldn't produce a name. When a warm, firm body settled behind him and strong arms wrapped around his chest, it all came back from the mist.

"Clint," Tony wheezed in shock. It was some sort of miracle.

"Who else," Clint answered wearily. His voice held a hint of suffering, of things he'd endured but wouldn't mention. "You owe me for crawling through that again."

"You came back."

Clint breathed against his ear. "Didn't want to die alone."

Overwhelming relief dragged Tony from the brink, and he smiled even though his lips hurt and his eyes filled with tears and acknowledging Clint meant acknowledging the world was real and the truth was inevitable and everything started to hurt again all at once. Tony closed his bleary eyes; the silo was so pitch black, there was no point. He relaxed into Clint's embrace, and quickly things were reduced to their simplest factors. His heart beating. The dull thud of Clint's behind his back. His lungs tiredly inhaling and exhaling. The rhythm of Clint's halting breathing. The shivering of their bodies in the cold wet. It wouldn't be long now. There was no light. No way out. No hope. No reason to keep fighting.

They were at the very last level.

Tony wasn't as frightened as he thought he would be. He expected a tidal wave of emotion to batter him in these last, painful moments of his life, but it didn't. He was frankly too tired and weak to manage that war, and there didn't seem to be much point, to spend the remainder of his existence making himself feel bad. So he sank into Clint, succumbing to the blood loss and shock and infection and hoping the other would do the same so Clint wouldn't be cognizant enough to watch him die.

It was getting harder and harder to stay awake. There was nothing he could see, nothing to which he could anchor himself save Clint, and in the frigid cold the meager warmth provided by their contact was too comforting to keep him from slipping away. He felt oddly (and thankfully) at peace, his mind lackadaisically drifting to the good times of his life rather than the bad. All the good things he'd done as Iron Man, as an Avenger. He was a hero, and heroes died for their heroics. There were worse things to die for. Thinking that somehow turned this pit and their struggles in it into some sort of accomplishment, a quest that had saved the world but had cost them everything. The rage and frustration and despair melted away in a sudden burst of warm, proud acceptance. He smiled in the blackness and reached up with his good hand to pat Clint's arm where it was draped across his chest. It took a monumental expenditure of energy to speak, but he did it anyway. "I'm glad to be with you, Clint Barton." His grin grew giddy. "Here at the end of all things."

Silence. Then Clint managed something that could have been a laugh. Or a sob. "You couldn't resist that, could you." Marking their entire ordeal with bad movie references and awful puns. That was Tony Stark, through and through. Stupid, with just the right amount of sentiment.

And it made them both smile.

"You know," Tony whispered. "I'm changing my mind about what movie we should watch when we hang out. You know. When we get out of here."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Tony closed his heavy eyes, satisfied. He just tried to breathe.

They didn't speak again.

* * *

Blackness.

Less than blackness. _Nothingness._

It was so deep and complete and limitless it might as well have been death.

Perhaps it was. The borders between life and death were so blurred that it could have – should have – been. But it wasn't. Not quite. Because somehow light was cutting through the sable void encompassing Tony. He didn't believe in all those stories about one "seeing the light" before one died, so the remains of his mind, still surprisingly sharp considering how close to his demise he truly was, immediately realized that _something was happening_. He didn't know what. Beyond that singular epiphany, he couldn't recall where he was or what had happened to him. He couldn't think, not in the true sense of the word. He only knew that the light was getting closer. Brighter. _Stronger_.

_Am I dreaming?_

"Tony?" a familiar voice called. It sounded like the speaker was very far away. He tried to grab onto the word, to use that to bring consciousness back, but it was so hard. "Tony? They're over here! Thor, I see them! They're over here!"

There were other sounds, closer sounds. Feet scraping over metal. The thudding of running boots. Other words he couldn't decipher. Somebody was cupping his face. Somebody was tenderly shaking him. "Tony? Can you hear me?" Insistent but gentle fingers tapped his cheek, prodding him, aiding in his struggle to come back. "We need to airlift them now! Stark's in hypovolemic shock. What about Barton?"

"Unresponsive. His vitals are weak." _Clint?_

More rushed voices. Whoever they were they were obviously panicked about something. He had a sinking suspicion it was about him. He felt himself being moved. Felt pain. He wasn't strong enough to scream or cry or even whimper. The gentle hands were touching him. He finally managed to gather himself enough to open his eyes and really see, but nothing would come into focus. "Tony? It's Bruce. We're going to get you guys out of here. Just hold on."

He tried to lick his lips. He tasted blood and sweat. "… Bruce?"

The dark form leaning over him remained blurry and indistinct. "Yeah. We found you. We'll get you out. Hold on."

There was another sound now. A roar and a whoosh and air being loudly and rhythmically beaten. He knew that sound. And then he looked upward and saw the lights blaring overhead. The pain freed tears from his eyes, and he blinked as well as he could until the scene became clearer.

A helicopter. Two helicopters. The black forms of soldiers descending into the silo on ropes. SHIELD agents. He turned his head ever so slightly so that he could look behind him and he saw the black of Clint's ripped clothes. He saw the fiery red hair of Natasha Romanoff leaning in concern over her fallen partner, and the two of them were surrounded by field medics. There was a heavy clank beside him, and he slowly looked back only to see Thor kneel beside Bruce.

Thor and Bruce and Natasha.

They'd been rescued.

_They'd been rescued!_

Life rushed over him, jumpstarting his brain like a jolt from a battery firing across his nearly dead nerves, and his face broke in a smiling sob. _Oh, God… Thank God. They found us, they found us, they found us they found us they found us – _ Oh no. "Steve?"

Bruce grabbed his good hand and squeezed tight. "He's okay."

The enormity of that was too much, the relief driving him back toward unconsciousness. He was vaguely aware of being moved, of quick hands stabilizing him, of Thor's strong arms encircling him. He was being lifted into some sort of basket. Bruce was there with him. There was a buzz of activity and conversation that he was just too overthrown to follow. But he did know he hadn't died. And he wasn't alone. They were safe. They'd been found. Steve had made it. And he and Clint were going home.

The basket jerked as it ascended to salvation. Tony turned his head and looked wearily and blearily down at the silo. With the lights shining above him, he could see all the way to the bottom of the pit. To the last level. It seemed so far away now.

He smirked, reached his good hand over the edge of basket, and unceremoniously flipped his would-be tomb the bird.

Iron Man dying in an iron hell?

_Nope. Not this time._


	10. Chapter 10

**DISCLAIMER:** _The Avengers_ is the property of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.

**RATING:** T (for language, violence)

**THE LAST LEVEL**

**10**

When Tony woke, he found himself in a very (and unfortunately) familiar place: the infirmary aboard the SHIELD helicarrier. He groaned, both against the pain and against the sad fact that he was yet again regaining consciousness in a hospital. He closed his eyes against the bright, bleached glare of fluorescent lights and wrinkled his nose at that distinct smell of sterility. He couldn't (and wasn't sure he wanted to) remember how he'd landed himself in the medical ward this time, and he was fairly certain that awareness would bring with it a mess of some pretty intense pain, so going back to sleep was the better choice. Slumber drew him back into its sweet embrace.

"Tony?"

_Ignore it._

"Tony, can you open your eyes?"

_Don't. Don't answer._

There was something of an exasperated sigh. "Tony, I know you're awake. I can see it in your vitals."

_Busted._ He chanced cracking open his left eye and saw a blurry form looming over him. The cloudiness was stubborn, and he gave up any pretense of trying to sleep, opening his other eye and blinking repeatedly until the mist cleared. Bruce's worried gaze was unwavering as the physicist waited patiently for Tony to come around. "Welcome back. How do you feel?"

Tony licked dry lips. His throat felt like he'd swallowed a mouthful of sand. "Like shit," he answered, unable to manage much more than a raspy whisper. His head was stuffed with wool, and the entirety of his body ached. He suspected immediately that he was on some pretty potent painkillers; everything seemed a little hazy, a little distant, and his nerves were numb. Things came back then in a rush. Zemo. The silo. The hellish nightmare. Clint's blindness and Steve's fall and waiting and waiting and _waiting _to die. He sighed gently, battling the burn of tears. He wasn't going to surrender. He was past that. "But I lived, so it's all good."

Bruce looked pained. "You almost didn't," he said softly. "You were in rough shape."

Tony grimaced. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear this. But his mouth was moving before he really decided to continue the conversation; the drugs were making it difficult to concentrate. "How bad was it?"

"You almost bled out on the operating table. They nearly didn't get you back." Tony closed his eyes. "You were in the ICU for three days. It was touch and go until last night when things started to stabilize."

It was difficult to understand that. To accept it. Even though he'd barely survived, even though he _knew_ in his heart how fortunate he was, it still hurt to realize how near he had come to death. It never got any easier. He saw the dark circles around Bruce's eyes, the tight lines of worry engraved in his face around his frown. He knew then how hard Bruce had worked to save him. To save all of them, in all probability. _Clint and Steve._ He needed to ask about them. But a different question slipped from his lips. "My arm?" he whispered with a wince.

"It's more metal than bone now," Bruce explained quietly. Tony darted his eyes down to the numb, heavy lump draped across his chest. It felt unattached, not _his_. The length of the limb was in a plaster cast to keep it immovable and protected. All he could see were his fingers, still so swollen and bruised to the point of hideous. Bruce was talking about how they'd replaced sections of his broken bones with metal rods, how they'd battled infection, how they'd fixed him. Tony made himself pay attention. "Your hand was in better shape. The surgeons managed to reset the bones. But I'm not going to lie to you. It'll take a lot of time and therapy before you get full functionality back." _If I ever get full functionality back._ The unspoken fear was there. Bruce met his gaze and offered a faint smile, laying a comforting hand on his good shoulder. "Hey. Don't worry about that now. You'll get it back."

Tony tried not to. The memory of the pain he'd endured battered him, like some sort of sadistic ghost, overcoming the warm barrier the analgesics were creating to torment him. But he wouldn't surrender to that, either. "What about Clint? And Steve?"

Bruce's eyes said what his lips wouldn't. "They're okay, Tony. Barely. Steve fractured his back in two places and had enough internal injuries to kill a normal man a few times over. That kid has got some fight in him… He ran for four hours until he got to a little village in eastern Latveria. People there aren't too friendly, but he was lucky and found someone willing to let him make a phone call and keep him alive until we got there." Tony swallowed thickly, not wanting to again consider the image of Steve running himself literally to death that Bruce's tale was eliciting. He didn't want to consider the other possibilities: if Steve had died in the wilderness, if Steve had been captured again by Zemo, if Steve had just happened to fall upon the some unfriendly citizens… _He was lucky. And so were we._ "He'll be alright if he rests and takes it easy. And Barton, too. He had a high fever and the worst concussion I've ever treated. The doctors relieved the pressure around his brain. That's restored some of his vision. The rest will come as he heals." Again, the unspoken doubt. _I hope._ "I was kinda wondering for a while which one of you would be the unlucky one, but none of you were. You're all too tough, I guess. Would have to be to make it out of there. I can't fathom how the three of you managed to climb up there as bad off as you were."

Neither could Tony, and he'd lived through it. "What about Zemo?"

Banner's face darkened into a scowl. "Got away," he said unhappily. Tony hadn't expected anything else. "By the time we got there, it was over and you three were gone. We only found Steve's shield and a hell of a mess. We searched, figuring he'd kidnapped you guys, but needless to say we didn't find any sign of where he'd taken you." That only yet again brought to bear how lucky they'd been. "We don't know what happened to him. But he didn't drown Europe in Adhesive X, and he didn't kill you three, so I think we should call this mission a success. At least, that's what Fury's calling it."

_A success._ It didn't entirely feel that way, but maybe it would. It could.

"Tony!" The gasp from the doorway drew his hazy attention, and he shifted his weary gaze from Bruce to his visitor. By the time he focused enough to see Pepper, she was already rushing across the room. "Tony! Thank God, thank God!" With surprising gentleness given the desperation twisting her pretty face, she gathered him into her arms. Tony closed his eyes and _breathed_, inhaling the flowery scent of that perfume she wore that he'd come to associate with her. All at once, the stink of rust and metal and dank air and blood was gone. She was warm and soft and strong as she held him as tightly as she dared and combed her fingers through his hair. "I was so scared…" she whispered, pulling away slightly before pressing a firm kiss to his sweaty brow and then to his dry lips.

Tony sank into her, fighting the newly rejuvenated press of fatigue. "I'm alright, Pep," he promised. He couldn't think of anything else to say. It didn't seem real, like this was a dream and he was really back in there, alone and dying in the darkness. A hallucination conjured by his deteriorating brain to ease the suffering of his spirit. But she felt so firm, so true, that he decided to hell with even considering that he'd never been rescued. "I'm okay."

She laughed at that and pulled away, wiping at her teary eyes. "I know," she said. "I know. I'd tell you to never frighten me like that again, but you're you." She hadn't meant that to be painful, had said it without even a speck of heat in fact, but Tony still felt terrible for worrying her again. "You got out. That's all that matters."

_All that matters._

It felt good to think that.

Bruce smiled warmly at the couple. "Well, if you're doing alright, Tony, I'll go check on the others. Steve has developed a nasty habit of ignoring sound medical advice and getting out of bed when he really should be resting."

"He has a nasty habit of ignoring all advice," Tony said wearily. But that "nasty habit" had saved his life, so he couldn't begrudge it too much.

Bruce laughed at that. "I've noticed. So has Thor. I think it might come to blows if he tries to get up again. Anyway, I'll be back a little later. Sleep." At that, Banner patted Tony's unwounded leg and left.

Tony closed his eyes and sighed, feeling sleep come for him. He was extremely tired, his leaden body sinking into the uncomfortable hospital bed as the morphine being pumped into him worked its wonders. He felt Pepper climb up on the bed beside him and spooning her slender form in between his side and the rail of the bed. She laid her head against his good shoulder, stretching her arm tenderly across his chest, mindful of his wounds and soreness. Tucking her head beneath his chin, she softly breathed with him, and that sweet smell of _her_ filled him completely.

"It must have been horrible," she whispered. He felt wet warmth soak into his hospital gown and realized she was crying. "Trapped there. Alone."

Tony swept his hand up and down her back. "Wasn't so bad," he murmured.

She lifted her head to look at him. "Really?"

He smiled, truly and genuinely. "Really." She kissed him, and he kissed her back, and there was no reason to be afraid anymore.

* * *

The next time he awoke, Pepper was gone. He realized it was much later in the day and he immediately spotted Steve in a plush chair beside his bed, covered in a blanket and sleeping in the golden rays of the setting sun. Tony pushed himself upward in to a more comfortable position as best he could and winced against the deep-set ache. "Rogers," he groaned hoarsely, wincing at the gravelly sound of his voice. Steve didn't stir, chin dropped to his chest. His hair fell over his forehead, a forehead still marred by fading bruises and cuts, but his skin had a healthy color to it. He looked too young, sleeping so soundly, and Tony couldn't really stand the sight of so much perfection. He cleared his throat loudly. "Rogers!"

"Huh? What?" Steve gasped as his eyes shot open and he leaned forward in his seat. He winced and groaned, his hands crossing his midsection protectively, before coming to his senses and settling his cloudy eyes on Tony. "Oh. Hey. You're awake."

Tony cocked his head slightly. "Could say the same of you."

"Me?" Steve said, as if he didn't understand for a moment. "Oh, no. I'm fine. Been up for days." He offered something of a sheepish smile. Tony didn't completely buy his assurances. Super soldier or no, Steve had nearly died, same as him. It had only been a few days ago, after all, even if it seemed much closer thanks to spending most of that time unconscious. Enhanced healing and vitality could only do so much to restore him. Knowing Steve, he'd probably been frantically trying to assure Tony and Clint would be rescued from the operating table. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay," Tony answered. He frankly didn't feel like complaining about it. "You?"

Steve smiled slightly. "Okay."

They fell into something of an awkward silence. The memory of it all, of dark moments and desperation and panic, lingered between them. Tony explicably felt embarrassed for his doubt and his fear and his weakness. Truth be told (and he wasn't about to tell it), if it hadn't been for Steve and his constancy and confidence, they would have died. "Look, this acting like nothing happened crap doesn't sit well with me, so I'm just gonna say it." He met Steve's gaze. "Thanks."

Steve seemed surprised. They'd been in tough situations before, more than either cared to count, and they'd even thanked each other before for fast reflexes and quick saves. But this was more, and they both knew it. It wasn't just pulling a teammate from the line of fire or taking a hit to spare another. Steve had literally carried him from the bottom of the silo to the very top. His strength and stamina had become Tony's, and Tony hadn't even wanted them. The filth of pessimism had really poisoned him; he didn't blame himself, because given the pain and the bleak chances, giving up had been inevitable. Clint had lost it, too. But Steve hadn't.

Steve Rogers was built of pretty stern and tough stuff. Tony knew that now more than ever. And he was damn sure (although he'd never be able to prove it) that that stuff had been there _before_ the serum.

Steve's face seemed perpetually locked in a reddened expression of shock. Tony grunted and closed his eyes. "Quit blushing like a girl, Rogers. Not like I'm proposing to you or something. I'm not even admitting that I have a man-crush on you, which I don't, by the way."

"What's a man-crush?"

"Did you really just ask that?" Tony shook his head. "Hasn't _anyone _taken you under wing to teach you the glories of the twenty-first century?" Steve looked annoyed and flustered. "I'm just trying to express my gratitude. You saved my ass. All of our collective asses."

"I didn't single-handedly get us out of there," Steve insisted. "I needed you guys just as much as you needed me. I wouldn't have been able to do it alone. There was more than one occasion where you pulled us up, where you took care of me. If it wasn't for you, we would have never gotten those launch doors open. And you saved Clint." Steve's voice grew a little rough at that, and Tony knew immediately he was still kicking himself for tossing the archer into the catwalk back during the fight with Zemo and causing the head wound. Never mind everything he'd done to ensure Clint's safety. Never mind that. "You shouldn't be thanking me. It was my fight with Zemo that got us trapped down there in the first place."

"Just say 'you're welcome'. Can you just do that for once, Spangles? Just once. Take the goddamn compliment."

Steve's mouth hung open, like he wasn't certain how to react. Then his expression softened and he smiled slightly. "You're welcome," he softly said.

Tony felt immensely relieved, the proverbial burden lifted from his chest. He released a long, slow breath, sinking back into the pillows a bit before closing his eyes again. "Good." That awkward quiet was quick to slip back into its place, though it was significantly less sharp than before. They'd seen each other at their weakest, their lowest. In that hell, everything had been stripped away. Weapons. Shields. Armor. It had been them and their flesh and bones and blood and hearts against sharp metal and rust and seemingly insurmountable heights. Tony wasn't entirely comfortable with that, that Steve had seen him so exposed and shaken and vulnerable. Naked, in a sense. He figured Steve probably felt the same. Clint as well. "How's Barton?" he asked.

Steve sighed, grimacing a bit as he did so. Tony didn't think it was wholly due to pain. "He can see some shadows. He says everything is very blurry. Doctor Banner thinks it will improve as he recovers. It's already better than it was yesterday." Again, the guilt. Steve wore it so plainly. "He's been sleeping a lot." What he didn't say was obvious. He was worried Clint was trying to avoid the fact that his vision might be permanently damaged.

Tony felt an inexplicable drive to make Steve feel better, even though that wasn't his typical response to someone's annoying and illogical emotional needs. He leaned forward and reached over his broken arm to grasp Steve's knee. "He'll get better."

Steve was surprised, his eyes shooting from Tony's hand to his face. "I should have been more careful," he admitted morosely.

"God, Steve. What, it isn't enough that you saved his life? He had to emerge unscathed, too?" Steve looked ashamed at that and averted his eyes. Tony let go of his knee. "And I can't help but notice you're not tearing yourself up about me." A hurt gaze shot to him. Tony raised his hand in defeat, trying his best not to smile. "Kidding." It was too easy to rile Rogers. It always had been. "Just let it go. If it were my choice, I'd rather be alive and blind than dead."

"Who said anything about being blind?"

Clint stood in the door, leaning on the frame, his hair sticking up in a spikey mess. He was dressed in a hospital gown and loose-fitting pants, and his pale face was covered in perspiration. Steve was up and out of his chair with surprising alacrity for a man who'd broken his back a few days before, racing over to Clint's side. Clint limped into the room, toward Steve, and his eyes _focused_. "Got it, Cap. Don't need your help."

Steve stopped in his tracks, eyeing Clint doubtfully. "What are you doing here?" he asked, incredulously shaking his head. "How did you…"

"I walked," Clint declared with a sly smile. He clasped Steve on the arm, pulled the bigger man against him slightly in what could have passed for a hug (they were Avengers – they didn't _do_ hugging), and then staggered to the other chair. Steve stared at him with his mouth unabashedly hanging open, shocked. "It's better," was all Clint said after he'd plopped down in the chair. He smiled warmly at Rogers. "No worries."

Steve seemed too alarmed, too flabbergasted, to move for a moment, staring at Clint with an obviously mounting sense of joy and relief. Then he broke out in a smile and limped back to his own chair. He sat gingerly. "No worries," he murmured thoughtfully.

"Except for Zemo," Clint commented. He looked between Tony and Steve. "Nat told me he got away. You were right, Stark."

Tony shrugged neutrally; it was sort of a sad gesture because it was so damn lopsided. "Always am. I'm sure he'll be back, though, the vindictive bastard that he is. We'll be ready when he comes for us, right, Cap?"

Steve clenched his jaw slightly before giving a curt nod. There was something dark there, something Tony had all but forgotten about in the desperate struggle to stay alive in the silo. Steve screaming as Tony'd been drug down the hallway. The wounds painting his back. The bruises and lacerations he'd suffered at the hands of Zemo's men. Those horrible things tormented the edge of his consciousness, nearly demanding their due, but he wouldn't acknowledge them. He knew what it was like to be tortured, and he'd be entirely content if nobody ever brought up his dark months in Afghanistan ever again. He'd do Steve that honor, at least. Whatever happened between him and Zemo, when the time came to it, Steve would be the one to get the kill.

Clint realized the unmentioned. He was perceptive, even if he hadn't been able to see what had been done to Steve. The dark scowl that affixed itself to the archer's face was tense and unyielding, and suddenly everything that had happened was too close to bear. So Tony changed the subject. There was no need to go back. They were free, and they should stay that way. "Guys, I gotta say that this experience has really taught me something about teamwork. About _sticking_ with one another, through thick and thin. Friendship is really the _glue_ that holds us together, isn't it?"

Clint groaned. "Damn it, Stark. I swear to God. If we ever run into that Adhesive X stuff again, I am _gluing _your mouth shut. That subtle enough for you?"

"You know what your problem is, Barton? You never have a good laugh. I go out of my way to make you smile, and all I get is grief."

"I _do_ laugh, just not at your stupid puns and lame references."

"Stupid? _Lame?_ I'll have you know that I come up with these on the fly for _your _benefit. It's not easy to conjure up comedic gold on a moment's notice! I didn't even tell you how, in true Bond fashion, we lived to _die another day_, and now I'm not going to because you're such an ungrateful jerk." He shook his head. "I just… I could really use some lovin'. You know. From the spy who loved me."

"God damn it, Stark!"

Even though he didn't get it, Steve laughed. It was good to hear.

* * *

Two days later, the three of them were back at Stark Tower. They would continue their convalescence at home, mostly because the SHIELD medical personnel had pretty much had it with Tony's constant whining and Steve's constant refusal to stay in bed and Clint's constant insistence that he was fine and didn't need any help. As it stood, the doctors and nurses there were content to leave them to their own devices, frustrated and irritated enough to potentially ignore sound medical practice and certain oaths they had taken about doing no harm. Nobody blamed them. Thus, with the help of Bruce, Thor, and Natasha, the injured Avengers were airlifted back to New York.

Tony was easily the worst of them. His arm would remain in the cast for weeks, and after that months of physical therapy would be necessary to regain his range of motion. His overwhelming joy that his arm and hand had been saved quickly wore off in the face of an itchy cast and the impending strenuous, difficult work, and he'd taken to complaining about anything and everything. He couldn't really walk, either, thanks to the healing wound in his leg. Immobility never had suited him well, and he quickly started driving Pepper crazy. Her immense elation at having him home was therefore short-lived, as it was a double-edged sword if there had ever been one. He used his lower lip and puppy-dog expression to get her to wait on him, which she did without complaint, even as she gritted her teeth at his tenth or eleventh request in an hour. She was an angel, and Tony was just about the worst patient in the world.

Steve was undoubtedly a close second. He didn't complain. He didn't bemoan his state. In fact, he refused to acknowledge that he was hurt at all. The super soldier serum had made him so resilient that he was almost able to maintain this nonsense, but it wasn't potent enough to make his assurances that he was well and ready to be active anything more than well-rehearsed lies. Hypovolemic shock had nearly turned to refractory shock, and he'd been on the verge of death when Banner and the med-evac team had reached him. Repairing the internal damage had required hours of intensive, dangerous surgery. The serum was working its wonders in full force now; his injuries were nearly healed, the bruises and cuts and scrapes long gone. But he was weak and fatigued because his body was working ardently to repair itself, and he needed to rest above everything. And he utterly refused to do so, claiming staying still too long when he could be needed drove him crazy. Thor didn't buy it, and neither did Bruce, and since sedatives and analgesics had basically no effect on him, the only effective treatment for his stubbornness was equal and opposite obstinacy. Thor was more than happy to oblige, and Steve was begrudgingly staying put in bed with an angry god of thunder standing watch.

And Clint was just about as unreasonable as Steve. He was weak as a kitten, due to the infection he'd barely survived, and his sight, while improving, was still far from normal. He could identify people easily enough now and walk without too much trouble, but things were still quite blurry, and he needed far more assistance than he would readily accept. Natasha was with him almost constantly; it was fairly obvious how worried she'd been at Clint's capture and close brush with death, even if she would never admit it. Her demeanor was cold and firm, and she tolerated none of his assertions that he wasn't a "goddamn invalid". She helped him with tenderness the others found surprising. She aided him in dressing and eating and generally taking care of himself, always at his side but never smothering, and as the days went on, he needed her less and less. His vision was coming back, bit by bit.

Soon enough, everything would be back to normal.

About a week after their rescue, they sat in one of Tony's spacious living rooms. Spread across the table was a load of junk food: potato chips, dip, pretzels, cookies and brownies and popcorn. Tony sat in the leather recliner, dressed in his oldest, grungiest sweats, covered in an electric throw with his bandaged leg propped on a pillow. Steve was laying on the couch, munching on popcorn; half his bowl was gone already, and the movie hadn't even started. Clint had sprawled himself on the loveseat. He looked more relaxed than Tony ever thought possible of him.

Time to hang out, as Tony had called it. Back in the silo, this had seemed unattainable.

"What is it we're watching again?" Steve asked as Tony fiddled with the remote.

"Everything, like I said. Bond. _Star Trek._ Might as well throw _Star Wars _in there, too. But first and foremost: a _Lord of the Rings_ marathon," Tony declared triumphantly. "In honor of our recent exploits. Victory against all odds. Climbing the proverbial Mount Doom. Casting the ring into the fire, well, as long as that's really a euphemism for Steve nearly falling to his death a few times." Steve shot Tony an irritated glare, which won him a cheeky grin in turn. "What? It's kinda like throwing yourself into the fire, anyway."

"And how long is this? I'm kinda tired," Steve said. "Can't we just call it a night?"

"That's exactly why we're doing this, Rogers. You find no value in modern pop culture. It's time for you to integrate into the real world."

"And I need to watch a bunch of elves and dwarves and pixies or whatever from a fake world to do that?"

"Yes, you do," Tony answered. "And there are no pixies in Middle Earth." Steve shook his head. "Come on, Cap. Remember what I told you? The next time we find ourselves in trouble, you'll have a lot more fun if you get all my movie references."

"Oh, yeah," Clint said, rolling his eyes as the first movie started to play on the humongous flat panel television before them. "I loved being compared to a Hobbit in the last moments of my life."

Tony huffed. "They weren't the last moments. And I'll have you know that Hobbits are extremely resourceful little buggers. I don't mind being compared to one. If Hobbits were real, I'd replace my entire robotic staff with them. Like my own little resourceful army of Oompa Loompas, only significantly less… orange."

"Shut up, Tony," Steve said. He looked up and over the arm of the couch and offered a warm, knowing smile. "You talk too much."

The movie started. About ten minutes later, Tony realized Steve was right. It _was_ late, and he was tired. And he had work to do with Bruce tomorrow in the lab (even if it was just sitting and talking science). And Pepper would be back from her meetings on the west coast soon, and as much as he wanted to lay around and pig out of junk food and watch movies, he wanted her more. He thought of that, of how sweet she smelled and how patient and beautiful she was and how wonderful she made his life… And then he thought back to those dark hours, and how much he wanted to show her the depth of his feelings for her. How much he wanted to make things right. How afraid he'd been that it had all been too late, and he was going to die alone.

But he hadn't died. And he'd never been alone. He'd had Steve and Clint with him, and they'd carried _each other_ all the way to the top.

He jerked awake when the score of the movie rose in a warm crescendo. Apparently he'd dozed, and he blinked the sleepiness from his eyes for a moment before glancing at the other two men. Steve was fast asleep on the couch, the bowl of popcorn forgotten on the table before him. And Clint was out as well, snoring softly and turned on his side.

So much for movie night.

It was all okay, though. Predictable, definitely, for their first hours alone without the care and company of the others, back in real life and away from the hell they'd survived. There was tomorrow and the day after and the day after. Even if nothing was for sure in their line of work.

"All's well that ends well," Tony said. "Right, guys?"

Peaceful and contented and lost to the world, they didn't answer. He yawned, watching the bright images dance across the television screen and hearing the triumphant music and feeling warm and safe and happy. He closed his eyes again.

There were dark places in the world. Evil men. Horrors. Hell on earth.

But there were also bright things, even in the darkest of places. There was hope and faith. Strength and loyalty. Bonds true and steadfast. Trust. Friendship and brotherhood.

All of that made what they'd gone through completely and utterly worth it.

**THE END**

Thanks to everyone who read, alerted, favorited, and reviewed this story, both the first and this time :-). I really appreciate all your support and comments. Also, special thanks to my beta-reader, E, for without her, none of this would have been possible.

Check out my other works, particularly _Self from Self_, my new treatise on how to destroy the Avengers. It features the bromantic trials of Steve and Thor and, of course, loads of misfortune befalling our dear Captain America. See you next time!


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